We'll Always Have Beirut
by Sweta
Summary: After six months of training at "the farm", Kate's a real CIA agent now. Based in Paris, she's operating at the front lines of the Cold War. But when she meets Niko Lonza again, new questions arise: is there still love between them, and on which side does he stand… [Kate / Niko – rated T (trigger warning: cigarette torture)]
1. Burning Questions

**_Author's Note: _**_This story is part of my (ongoing) five part series forming what I like to call "my personal second season of Pan Am"._

_For a complete overview of the series, please see my profile page or the last chapter of this story._

– – – – – – – –

_Pan Am – "__We'll Always Have Beirut_"

**Burning Questions**

_v1.0.1 (June 21, 2013)_

"_Fräulein_ Cameron, do you zink zis is a joke? Zis is no joke!"

The angry man's thick German accent made Kate remember what she had been told about the German intelligence agency: when the _Bundesnachrichtendienst_ had been created eight years ago, the Germans had recruited the best trained spies and counter-espionage operatives they had been able to find – only the most experienced officers of Gestapo, SS, and SD. The man not only sounded exactly like a Nazi officer from a war film, he most probably really was a former Nazi officer. He looked at Kate, and when she didn't answer, he slammed his fist on the table.

"Why did you come to Munich? Who were you going to meet? What is your mission? Who are you working for? Tell us!"

"Listen, I've already told you that I work for Pan American World Airways, that my 'mission' in Munich is just a regular flight, that I was just doing some sightseeing in the city – when you kidnapped my from the streets! I don't know what you want from me, I don't even know who you are! I want to speak to the American consul…"

Kate had tried to keep calm and cool, but she flinched when the man's fist violently hit the table again.

"We know sat you are not an ordinary stewardess, _Fräulein_ Cameron!"

"_Jetzt bin ich dran, Gustav_."

For the first time since Kate had been brought to this interrogation room, the other man spoke. All the time he had been sitting on a chair in the corner and had watched his fellow agent shouting at Kate, but now he raised and stepped closer. He drew a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and offered it to Kate. She wasn't a heavy smoker, and under other circumstances, she would have declined. But now, it offered a welcome moment to sort her thoughts. Up to this point, everything had gone so fast, Kate needed a short pause to think about what she should do. The younger interrogator seemed willing to give her this pause, because he casually sat on the table and gave her a light. Then he watched her smoke for some seconds before he switched to English:

"Miss Cameron, my name is Herbert. You seem to be a clever young woman, and I'm sure you have seen enough movies to understand what is going on here."

His voice was calm and soft, and his accent was far less pronounced than the older man's. The unfamiliar German pronunciation of his name really stood out. He also was younger than the other man, and Kate thought that he was too young to have been a Gestapo officer. The man smiled at Kate and continued:

"My friend Gustav here is angry, he is shouting at you, and he is aggressive. He is playing what you Americans call 'the bad cop', and his task is to intimidate you. I, on the other hand, am calm and friendly, I've introduced myself, and I've offered you a cigarette. I'm 'the good cop', and my task is to win your trust. I'm honest with you, so honest, I even revealed our little strategy to you."

Gustav bristled with anger at his younger colleague's revelation, but Herbert didn't seem to care. Kate didn't care, too. She had been trained in interrogation techniques, and the old game of good cop/bad cop had been just one of many approaches she had been made familiar with at 'the farm'. At the time, she had hoped that she would never be in a situation in which she was neither of the two cops, but the interrogated – and especially not on her first mission after completing the course.

"I'm sure you're expecting me to say something like: 'But I'm not good either, I'm as bad as Gustav' next, aren't you, Miss Cameron?" He still smiled at Kate, as he had done all the time since he had left his chair. "But I can actually help you – as long as you cooperate with us. You are an American citizen, and America and Germany are allies. We should help each other."

He drew a photo from his jacket pocket and looked at it, so that Kate couldn't see what it showed. When he finally put it on the table, Kate had to do her best to control her facial expressions. The photo showed her and Anke, the young translator she had helped to escape from East Germany when she had been in West Berlin a little over one year ago, on her second assignment for the CIA.

"This is a picture of you and a woman from the Soviet occupation zone. You brought her to the U.S. Mission in Berlin. The two gentlemen in the background are agents of the Stasi, the East German secret police. We believe that the young woman is a Stasi agent, too. You contacted her, and you arranged for her departure to America. We have been waiting for you to return to Germany since we watched your interaction with those East German agents one year ago."

Herbert tapped his finger on the photo and bent down to Kate. When he spoke to her, his voice was still calm and soft, but nevertheless insistent:

"Miss Cameron, my government isn't very keen on foreigners coming to our country and helping the communists to infiltrate it. We already know enough to put you in jail, like we do with all communist spies we catch. But as I said, you are not just some foreigner, you are an American citizen, so you are our ally. If you cooperate and tell us what you were up to this time, we'll hand you over to your authorities." Herbert's smile froze when he continued: "But arresting and jailing an American citizen is always problematic, and if you don't cooperate, we'll have to make sure that your case won't disturb the good relations between our governments. We'll have to find other ways to make sure you won't continue your work, without officially taking you into arrest – if you understand what I mean."

He still smiled, but there was nothing nice in it, and the young man suddenly reminded Kate of the cold, sinister Gestapo officers she knew from the movies, far more than Gustav ever had.

"As I said, Miss Cameron, I'm just playing 'the good cop', but I'm neither a cop, nor good."

When Kate thought about Herbert's offer, and the threat that came with it, she noticed how ironic her situation was. Just like the German on the other side of the table, she had to consider the status of the relations between their governments. This was her first assignment as a proper CIA agent, and Richard had told her that it would be an easy mission, nothing she hadn't done before. Her task was to meet a high ranking German air force officer and to get some information from him in exchange for money. It was just a little bit more than a simple courier job, and Kate had completed more challenging tasks in the past. An easy job for beginners. Most importantly, Kate shouldn't have to be afraid of any interference by the local authorities. After all, America and Germany were allies.

But exactly that was the problem, and in fact, the German authorities had been Richard's main concern. For quite some time, the Pentagon and the CIA were suspecting the Germans of having their own plans for the American nukes that were stored at both American and German air force bases in West Germany. In the event of war, the Americans would give some of the nukes to the German air force to use them against the invading communists, but the Americans would maintain control over the weapons until the very last moment. The Pentagon was afraid that the Germans were making plans to get their hands on the nukes, no matter whether the Americans approved of it or not. The German colonel Kate had been sent to meet was offering to reveal exactly those plans.

There was a very easy way out of this for Kate. She just had to identify herself as a CIA agent, and all this was over. Kate and Herbert, they really were allies, in the most literal sense. But Richard had made it very clear that Kate wasn't allowed to reveal this, under no circumstances. The Germans were plotting to steal American nukes, and the Americans knew about this, and most probably the Germans even suspected that the Americans knew. But this was all part of the game. However, bribing an officer to sell military secrets was not. If Kate revealed her true mission to the Germans, she would be free to go, but it would seriously damage the American-German relations.

"I take your silence as indicator that our little 'good cop/bad cop' game wasn't successful. Let's try something else."

The younger German gently took the cigarette from Kate's hand and took a drag on it. He looked at Kate, and smiled. But then, he suddenly grabbed Kate's right wrist and violently pulled her arm over to him. Before Kate could react in any way, she felt Gustav's hands grab both her upper arms from behind her back. He forcefully hold her down so that she couldn't move, and she had to watch as Herbert took another drag on the cigarette, which made the glowing end light up.

"I want you to understand, Miss Cameron, that I consider this measure disappointingly uninspired and stereotypical, and it isn't even especially impressive. Not only that, it also is extremely ineffective compared to other techniques I could demonstrate you. But I'm no longer 'the good cop', and I have to prove it."

Kate struggled, but Gustav's strong hands hold her down on the chair. Her thoughts were racing when the glowing cigarette closed in on the bare skin of her forearm.

"Wait, I'll talk!" Kate shouted. "I'll tell you everything, but please, just don't hurt me."

Herbert stopped the movement of his hand, and he looked disappointed, as if he had wished for Kate to not give in. With a silent gesture he invited Kate to go on.

"You are right, I was going to meet someone." Kate took a deep breath and looked Herbert directly in the eye. "I was going to meet a man who had offered to sell me something I want. The money you found in my purse was for him. I'm a smuggler."

Herbert skeptically furrowed his brow, but Kate could feel his grip on her wrist easing. This gave her new confidence, but she wasn't going to let him know this. It was time for a confession, and it had to be dramatic. Kate hold the eye contact just for a split second, and then she averted her eyes. She made her lips tremble, and she even managed to press a tear from her eye.

"I'm a Pan Am stewardess, I can go wherever I want without having to clear my personal baggage through customs, and I have direct access to the plane's luggage compartment. It's the perfect opportunity for smuggling, it was just too tempting."

"And what is it that you were going to buy for 15,000 Dollars?"

"Swiss watches. I'm in contact with a man who smuggled them to Munich from Switzerland. They are worth around 50,000 Dollars in the States." For a moment, Kate thought about giving Herbert a smile about the profit she was claiming to expect out of the watch deal, but then she decided to not go over the top with it. She better stuck to her role as an intimidated criminal who was ready to do anything to get out of jail. "I don't know his name or how he looks, but maybe I can contact him again and arrange for another meeting. You will be able to arrest him…"

"What's about you and those Stasi agents in Berlin?"

Herbert cut in on her and tapped on the picture of Kate and Anke. He was still holding the cigarette, and ashes dropped on the photo. Kate was confident that he believed her story about Swiss watches, and compared to this urgent improvisation, inventing some convincing explanation for what had happened in Berlin was easy.

"I didn't cooperate with the Stasi, Anke and I both fled from them! She was my contact in East Berlin. We were smuggling nylons – they don't have those in East Germany, and they are paying good money for it. But the Stasi found out about her and me, and they tried to abduct us to East Germany. We had to flee, which was easy for me, as a stewardess, but hard for Anke. I brought her to the American Mission, and from there on, she did the rest. I don't exactly know how she got out of Berlin, maybe she had enough money for some bribery, or she had to sleep with one of the diplomats."

Herbert looked at her, and for two or three seconds he was seemingly pondering what Kate had been telling him. But then his grip on her wrist tightened again, and he jerked her arm over the table, at the same time bringing the cigarette back very close to it.

"Explain Moscow!" he said in a low voice. "What did you do there? Getting new orders from your Russian masters? Your sister got arrested for espionage, but the communists let her go just minutes before you left! How did you get her free? Did you use your influence with the KGB? Or is she a spy, too, and her arrest was just a ploy to cover up for some extended briefing?"

"Laura has nothing to do with all that – the smuggling, that is."

Kate's voice was telling more about her genuine concern for her sister than she had intended. Dragging Laura into this affair was the last thing she wanted to do. But then, she also was kind of glad that Moscow had been brought up. This was even easier to explain than Berlin, she just had to tell Herbert what really happened.

"Her arrest was just a misunderstanding, she didn't do anything. But I really had a partner on this flight. In fact, he's the man who brought me into this business in the first place. We sold American whiskey and cigarettes to high ranking members of the nomenklatura. When my sister got arrested, my partner spent most of the money we had made to get her free. In hindsight, this may have been the Russians' plan all along, because that way they got the whiskey and the cigarettes, and got to keep their money, too."

Herbert's hand with the cigarette came to rest on the table, so that the glowing ember was no longer hovering directly above Kate's skin. Even Gustav eased his grip on her now, and Kate sensed that she had to make just one last good move to get out of this. She removed the fear from her facial expression and put on another mask. She tried to display a feeling of relief over that the two Germans were believing her, and then she infused a little hint of newly won confidence.

"I'll give you his name if you let me go. He's smuggling for years now, all over the world! I'm just a small fish, let me go and I promise to deliver you a real major criminal."

Kate hoped that the impression she was making on Herbert was that of a desperate girl that had just found what she thought was the way out of all her problems. It wouldn't hurt if he came to the judgment that she was probably thinking of herself as a more intelligent woman than she actually was.

"Miss Cameron, I'm not interested in catching smugglers, it's my job to catch spies."

Herbert lifted his hand from the table and nonchalantly placed the barely glowing cigarette in the left corner of his mouth. He absentmindedly started smoking it, and Kate hoped that he had lost interest in it, just as he had hopefully lost interest in the mere petty criminal he believed her to be.

"And I'm still not convinced that your aren't one."

This time, he didn't give Kate a warning by grabbing her arm harder or by pulling it into position. In one fast and totally unexpected movement he pushed the cigarette onto her arm. The glowing tobacco burned on Kate's skin and through it. The pain was focused on just one very small area of her body, but it was far worse than Kate had feared when Herbert had first threatened with it. The physical pain made Kate scream, and then cry. But besides this, there was also the terrifyingly cold expression on Herbert's face. He looked her in the eye, and then, for the first time, he shouted at her:

"Tell me the truth!"

It was the first time in her whole life that Kate saw a man shouting while his face kept calm and cold at the same time. His face told her that he could go on with this forever, that he could torture her for hours without even the slightest trace of humane sympathy. But this one little cigarette on her skin was already far more than Kate could endure.

"George Broyles, his name is Captain George Broyles." she cried out. "Just ask Interpol, I'm sure they can tell you something about him. Please, stop it!"

"Enough!"

The burning cigarette immediately disappeared from Kate's skin when the angry shout sounded in the small interrogation room. A third man had entered through the door in Kate's back, and now he pushed Herbert away from her. When Kate looked up, she saw Richard Parks.

– – – –

"I'm sorry for what I did with the cigarette, Miss Cameron. I have to admit I got a little bit carried away by your elaborate story. We didn't expect you to go this way, we thought you would either reveal yourself immediately or get caught up in contradictions after some attempts to extricate yourself from the situation. We really expected you to fail either way, we just wanted to find out how long it would take. But you didn't fail."

"So you're telling me this is my own fault, because I was too good?"

Kate pointed at the bandage around her forearm. Even one hour later, and after a doctor had treated her with ointment, it still hurt. Herbert put on an awkward smile, but when he realized that Kate wouldn't smile back at him, it disappeared from his face.

"Again, I'm sorry, Miss Cameron." he repeated. "But then, if this had been real, you would have been tortured sooner or later, anyway. And it was just a cigarette. You have to expect far worse in case…"

"We have to go now, Miss Cameron has to catch her flight."

Richard interrupted Herbert, and the German agent nodded. Gustav, standing behind him, did the same, and then they both turned around and walked away without looking back at the two Americans. Richard opened the door of his car, and Kate got in. Some seconds later, they were on their way from the little town of Pullach back to Munich.

"Now I understand why you didn't congratulate me on completing my training at Langley." Kate said eventually. "I hadn't passed the final exams yet."

"But you did now." Richard answered. "So, congratulations. Not on the burn scar, but on how you did in the interrogation. Your story was very convincing. Herbert may have been right about a situation in which the enemy already knows about you, but in a setup like this, when they aren't sure themselves, it would have probably been convincing enough to get you out of it. Tell me, how did you come up with this Broyles guy when he asked you about Moscow?"

"Let's just say that Captain Broyles is a friend, and that therefore I would appreciate it if you could keep his name out of your report."

"Don't worry about this. As Herbert said, we're not interested in catching smugglers, our business is espionage."

Richard smiled at her and then looked back on the road. Kate touched her bandaged arm. The doctor had told her that her skin would heal eventually and that there would be no scar left, but in the moment, it just hurt. And the worst thing was, that Kate couldn't even tell herself that she had been wounded in the line of duty. It had been just a test, a game.

"A stewardess with a bandage." she said. "I can't even cover it with my uniform, the sleeves of our blouses are too short. What am I supposed to tell my crew?"

"You're a trained spy, don't ask me for a cover story. If you can't make something up, this isn't the right job for you." Richard smiled, but Kate didn't feel particularly amused. "Besides, don't worry too much about what 'your crew' will think about you, we've already arranged a new assignment for you."

"Will I get back to my old crew?"

For a moment, Kate forgot about the pain on her arm. The prospect of being reunited with her friends of the _Clipper Majestic_ made her happy. She hadn't seen them since she had left for Langley, Virginia in the second week of January. For more than six months she had undergone training at CIA headquarters and at a nearby facility called 'the farm'. She had learned how to code and decode messages, how to use a dead drop, how to make contact with an informant, how to shadow an enemy spy, and how to disappear in the streets of a city she had never been to before. She had learned how to pick locks, how to use a microfilm camera and a short-wave transmitter, and how to fire a pistol. She had learned – and practiced – how to act under cover and how to beguile the enemy, how to resist interrogation, how to convince a man to do what she wanted him to do, and even how to seduce him if it was necessary. She had learned Russian with an accent that allowed her to pass as a girl from Leningrad, and she had learned all that and much more in just six months. For six month she had have no direct contact with her friends and her family, other than one phone call to explain her sudden departure to Laura and one or two letters.

"No, we've found an even better position for you. Remember when we told you to tell your sister that you're doing a special course for international stewardesses?"

Kate nodded when she remembered the cover story for her half year absence. She had told Richard that this story wasn't very convincing, that she as a stewardess herself wouldn't have believed it, and that it would just entail even more questions. But Richard had insisted, and Kate had done her best to sell it to Laura. After all, she had been happy to get this opportunity at all. On last New Year's Eve, when she had been sitting at Richard's sickbed after he had been shot by Anderson, he had told her that she had to choose: either go to Langley to become a real agent, or stay at Pan Am as a stewardess. The next day, after spending the night with her friends, she had told him that she declined his offer. Kate had been willing to be a mere courier as long as she could stay with her friends. But when he had called her three days later, and had told her that they had come up with a possibility for her to have both – Pan Am and the CIA –, she had accepted without any hesitation.

"Well, that training will come in handy." Richard said, referring to her supposed training at Pan Am's special stewardess school. "We've worked some contacts at Pan Am headquarters, and they are sending you to Paris. You will be permanently stationed there and work as a standby stewardess."

"As a standby stewardess? I've never heard of something like that, what is this supposed to be?"

"To be honest, we're pretty proud of this." Richard looked at Kate, and she could tell from his smile that this idea had been his own. "Pan Am will keep you in reserve to fill in whenever a stewardess won't be able to do her job, for whatever reasons. Every time Pan Am needs a stewardess available for a flight that departures from any city in Europe, you will be the one they come back to. You'll be based in Paris, but you'll fly to destinations all over Europe, and beyond."

Richard really was very proud of this arrangement the agency had found for its newest operative, and Kate began to understand why.

"I guess you'll take care that I'll be busy all the time."

"Don't worry, we won't poison any of your colleagues." Richard said in advance before Kate could voice any concerns. "We'll just arrange for ample work opportunities for you. And it may turn out that there is additional work waiting for you in most cities your duty will take you. In the beginning, you'll do a lot of courier jobs, just as you're used to. We have a lot of agents all across Europe, and you'll be the most flexible and reliable way for them to send documents and packages between each other. Later, especially when you got to know our men closer, they'll probably have special assignments for you. We haven't invested that much time and money in you to get an overqualified mailman."

"Well, that's a relief, I already thought about exchanging one blue uniform for another." Kate laughed, and Richard looked at her and smiled.

"Seriously, we know what you are capable of. As I said, we have a lot of agents in many cities, but we don't have our men everywhere. You, in contrast, can go everywhere in very short notice. You will find yourself being on your own in a foreign and hostile country sooner than you desire."

Richard's voice had gotten more serious with the last sentence. He didn't look at Kate this time, because he was passing an unclear road junction and had to watch the road, but Kate understood what he was talking about. She had done much more than just simple courier jobs in the past, even before her training at Langley, and some of her missions had turned out to be unexpectedly challenging and even dangerous. But after all the things she had been taught and after all the months she had been prepared for this new step in her intelligence career, she realized that from now on, she was supposed to expect her work to be dangerous.

"And with your position right at the European front lines in the Cold War, you're predestinated for becoming a case officer on your own in the end." Richard continued. "It will be your job to spot and recruit new agents, and to handle and to oversee them. Sooner or later, you will have to take care not just for your own safety, but you'll have to make sure your protégés are safe, too."

"Just like you did when you stopped Herbert from torturing me?" Kate meant it as a joke, but she could read in Richard's face that he didn't take it as one. "I'm sorry, I didn't meant to make you responsible for what happened." she added quickly. "I understand why this was necessary. I really wish I wouldn't need this bandage, but I understand the purpose of this whole test."

Richard didn't answer, and he didn't even look over at Kate. Without saying anything on this matter he kept his eyes on the road. After the distraction of talking about her new assignment, the wound pain returned now. By this time, they were already in Riem, only a few minutes away from Munich Airport, and Kate checked her watch. Her flight back to London was scheduled to departure in just half an hour.

"So, Paris it is." she eventually broke the silence. "When will I start working there? And where will I live?"

"We've already rented an apartment for you, close to the center of Paris, but not too far from Orly. I hope you'll find it quite acceptable."

Richard stopped the car in front of the airport's main entrance and looked at Kate. He was finally smiling again.

"We've sent you here directly from Langley, and now you know why." he said. "This mission was still part of your training, it was your final exam, and you passed with flying colors. After the last six months, and what happened today, you've earned yourself some vacation. Enjoy July in New York. You haven't met your sister since January, and I can imagine you want to tell her about your new assignment in Paris."


	2. Two Parises

_Pan Am – "We'll Always Have Beirut"_

**Two Parises  
**

_v1.0.0 (=v0.6.2, June 03, 2013)_

Beirut – 'The Paris of the Middle East'. Sitting in this nightclub, enjoying the vibrant atmosphere and watching happy young locals and tourists dancing to the lively mixture of western and oriental music, and after roaming the crowded streets of the city for two hours, Kate could understand why people compared the Lebanese city to her new home town. But in many ways, Beirut was even more fascinating than Paris. The unique blend of traditional oriental culture and modern western way of life, accomplished by the hospitality and openness of the Lebanese people, made it one of most popular destinations with tourists from all over the world.

But not only tourists came to Beirut. Just as its capital was compared to the French metropolis, Lebanon was known as the 'Switzerland of the Middle East'. Even though there were no petroleum occurrences or any other resources worth mentioning in the small country, its booming banking industry had made it one of the richest in the region. Businessmen and representatives of corporations from the whole Arab world, the Western hemisphere, and Africa and Asia came to Beirut to conduct all kinds of financial transactions. The money they left in Beirut fueled a building boom, and all the new and glamorous hotels, restaurants, and casinos attracted more and more tourists. Beirut was a buzzing city, and Kate could feel that it had a great future ahead of it.

There was a third kind of people that came to Beirut. As a so-called 'nonaligned country', Lebanon was proud of being part of neither the Western free world, nor the Eastern Soviet bloc. Being open for everyone, no matter from where they came and in which currency they paid, was part of their formula for success. As a result, it wasn't uncommon for an American banker to find himself drinking at the same bar with a Russian engineer, or for a French literature professor to teach a class of students from Poland, Hungary, and many other states that lay behind the Iron Curtain. As seen from Beirut, there was no Iron Curtain, and that attracted persons in the same business Kate had joined only recently. The Paris of the Middle East was a nest of spies.

Kate had learnt that she would serve as a stewardess on a flight to Beirut even before she knew what she was supposed to do when she would get there. Pan Am's Paris base manager had called and told her that one of the stewardesses had contracted food poisoning and that he wanted Kate to fill in for her. It had been the first time Kate received a call like this after her return from New York, and on her way from her apartment to Orly airport she had been wondering whether this was just a regular Pan Am job, or an assignment from her other employer. She had reminded herself of Richard telling her that they wouldn't poison a stewardess, but could she trust him in this?

She already had been introduced to her crew for this flight when Kate had been called to the telephone in the lobby. A call from her father – Kate knew what that meant. The brown envelope had been waiting for her in the phone booth, and Kate had taken the time to open it before returning to her crew. It contained a second, smaller envelope and a short handwritten note with directions for Kate. All she had to do was meeting a contact in a nightclub and hand him over the envelope. A simple courier job, just as Richard had promised.

The flight had been far more challenging for Kate. For more than six months, she hadn't been working as a stewardess, and the one flight from New York to Munich and back three weeks ago hadn't been enough to get her back into the old routines. Furthermore, she had to work with a crew she didn't know. She had met one of the stewardesses before, but only off duty, in a bar in London. Kate knew nothing about this team, and how they organized their work. She had been really nervous when the plane took off.

As it had turned out, it seemed that all crews did the same work in a similar way, and Kate had found back to her old work flow unexpectedly quickly. The other stewardesses were all very kind and nice, and Kate did her best to be them a good coworker. Kate saw her special position as an opportunity to meet a lot of her fellow stewardesses she wouldn't have met otherwise, and as an opportunity to make new friends. The last thing she wanted them to think of her was that she was a lazy freeloader, enjoying life in Paris and avoiding the work a stewardess was supposed to do. When the other women had invited her to spend the evening together, Kate had been very happy to accept the invitation, even more so when she learnt that her crew for the flight planned to go to the very same nightclub she was supposed to meet her contact at.

The club, that was also a restaurant, was located in the Avenue des Français, the most prestigious boulevard of Beirut. At first, they all had occupied a table on the street and enjoyed a light Mediterranean dinner. It was August at the Mediterranean, but with a gentle evening breeze coming from the sea directly across the street, the climate was just perfect. Music not only from this club, but also from other bars and restaurants filled the air that smelled for the sea and the spicy oriental food that was served all around them. They had watched the people strolling along the promenade at sun set and listened to their cheerful laughs and chatter in languages from all over the world. Kate had found perfect companions for the evening in the three stewardesses she had spent the day with. Much to her relief, she had learnt from them that the woman she was filling in for really wasn't suffering from food poisoning – or any other form of poisoning – at all. Just the day before, after they had arrived in Paris, she had met a young man and spent the night with him. She had called in sick to win two more days with him before she had to return to New York.

Kate was pretty sure that it was no random coincidence that the man had shown up just when the agency needed someone to fly to Beirut. She had been told about the dangers of falling for a Russian 'Swallow' or an East German 'Romeo' during her time in Langley, and she also had been taught some techniques so that she herself could act as a 'Honeypot' if it should become necessary. She felt a little bit sorry for the poor woman. She was probably really in love with a man who was considering her nothing more than a job, but then, at least she was having a good time for two or three days. After all, it was better than a poisoning.

Thinking about what had brought her to Beirut, she remembered that there was still work to do. She checked her watch: ten minutes to twelve o'clock. By the time, the four woman had exchanged their table with beach view for a table right next to the dance floor inside of the club. Kate excused herself and left her three new friends, who were far more interested in the men around them than in Kate anyway.

Kate left for the restrooms, but as soon as she was out of sight, she changed her course for the upper floor where she was supposed to meet her contact. This room was just as crowed with people as every part of the popular club, and there were four women and five men sitting at the bar. That was kind of unfortunate. Kate hadn't received any information on how her contact looked, just that it was a man, and the short note had added that the other agent didn't know more about her either. The contact procedure had been specified as the well-known hour-of-the-day exchange, but who should Kate ask for the time?

Four of the men at the bar were accompanied by women, but the fifth man was alone. It was worth a try. Kate stepped over to the bar and placed herself directly next to the single man. She invitingly smiled at him, and he smiled back. But he didn't say anything.

"Pardon me, could you please tell me what time it is?" Kate eventually initiated the contact herself.

"_Je suis désolé, je ne parle pas anglais. Parlez-vous français?_"

The man smiled at Kate, and for a moment she thought about repeating her question in French. It wasn't totally unreasonably that her local contact didn't speak English. But then, another man that hadn't been sitting at the bar stepped right behind Kate.

"It's close to twenty-four hundred hours." he said.

"That's eleven o'clock, isn't it?"

"No, it's already twelve o'clock."

"Thank you for saving me, I don't speak any French." Kate said, and it didn't matter that this was a blatant lie. "May I return the favor by inviting you for a drink?"

"I'm sure I'd really enjoy it, but I'm afraid my date would prefer me to spend my time with her." The man pointed at the table behind him. A young Lebanese woman answered Kate's look, and her facial expression was hostile like no other on the whole room.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I don't want to disturb your evening. But then let me at least buy the two of you some drinks." Kate said and turned to the barman. "Two glasses of champagne, please!" she ordered.

When the bartender had prepared the two glasses, Kate opened her purse to take her money from it, and at the same time, she hid the folded up envelope in her left hand. After paying for the champagne and taking the two glasses, she handed them over to the man that had turned out to be her contact. She felt his fingers carefully grasping not only the stem of the glass, but also the piece of paper.

"That's very nice of you, and I'm sure she thanks you, too." he said. Looking at his girlfriend, Kate wasn't sure about that. "And who knows, maybe we'll meet again soon." the man added, and then he left Kate and returned to his table.

Kate smiled at the woman for a last time, and then she turned towards the stairs to return to her own companions. Half way down, she paused and panned the lower floor of the club. Only two of her friends were sitting at their table, watching the dance floor, and when Kate looked closer she saw the third stewardess dancing with a young man. The band played on of Kate's favorite songs, a modern classic she knew from the clubs of Paris. On the other side of the room, where larger tables stood, people were still occupied with the last course of dinner. The long bar down here was just as crowed as its smaller counterpart upstairs.

Just when Kate wanted to move on, she stopped again. There was something, or rather someone who caught her attention. She focused at the man that was sitting at one of the most distant bar stools. He was talking to the barkeeper now, and Kate could no longer see his face, but just one second ago, she had. It had looked familiar. Kate slowly stepped down the last few stairs, her eyes fixed on the man. He was handing the barkeeper some money, obviously paying his drinks, and then he raised from his stool. He slipped into his jacket, and again, Kate wasn't able to see his face when he looked down to put his wallet away. When he turned around, and Kate could finally get a clear view at his face, her heart skipped a beat.

Niko! It was Niko! Niko was here, in the same room with her! Kate rushed down the stairs and tried to meet him. The floor was swarming with people, and Kate struggled to force her way through the tide of incoming patrons before she eventually stepped aside and took the passage through the field of tables. All the people around her were sitting, neither blocking her way nor her view, but the short moment in the midst of the crowd had been enough to lose track of Niko. When she reached the cloak counter at the exit, she made the mistake to stop and look out for Niko, but then she remembered that he already had slipped into his jacket, and that the weather outside was far too warm for a coat. She rushed on, outside, and then she stood on the street. She looked to the left and to the right, searching for Niko in the crowd. She couldn't find him. He was gone.

– – – –

"I've never been to Beirut, I wonder why." Laura took a sip from her coffee. "I mean, it's been more than one and a half year since I started working as a stewardess, 17 months, you'd think that by now I'd have been to all the places Pan Am serves."

"Pan Am flies to cities in the whole world. Most of us stewardesses retire without having been to all of them."

"Just one more reason for me to envy you." Laura sighed. "At first you are selected for this special training, then you move to Paris, and now you got to see Beirut and all those other exciting and beautiful cities."

"Oh, come on!" Kate laughed at her sister's gratuitous self-pity. "You are a Pan Am stewardess, too. It's not like you never leave New York! As a matter of fact, you actually get to see more of the world than I do! You fly to South America, Asia, and Europe, but I'm restricted to flights from Paris, and maybe London, Rome, and so on."

She took a sip from her own coffee and looked around. They were sitting at a coffee shop just one block away from Maggie and Laura's apartment, and were enjoying the warm sunny day. Summer could be terrible in New York, but this August was just perfect. It was only the second time Kate was in New York in the whole year, but it still felt like home. Which reminded her of yet another virtue Laura enjoyed.

"And most importantly, I have to deal with a new crew on every of this flights you envy me. I don't have a own crew. You have Maggie, Colette, Sanjeev, Dean, and Ted."

Laura looked down at the her coffee and sighed again. She was obviously feeling the same as Kate did.

"I wish I could have been with you last week." Kate continued.

Ted had called her from New York just the day before her departure for Beirut to tell her the news about the birth of his son, Teddy Junior. He had asked her to come over to see him, but Kate hadn't been able to accept the invitation. Her base manager hadn't been willing to give her some days off just two weeks after she had returned from her vacation.

"I would have loved to see Ted and Amanda's son. I know Ted for such a long time, he has always been a lady's man. And now he's happily married and father of a little baby boy! I've already missed his and Amanda's wedding, and now they're a family of three."

Laura was still staring at her coffee, and when she looked up now, her smile seemed odd to Kate. But she could tell why.

"Well, as I told you, Maggie can't be here with us today because Captain Broyles is in town." Laura said before Kate could ask her about it. "I told her that you would come to New York, but Broyles is in New York nearly as seldom as you are, and Maggie spends every minute with him when he is here."

"I don't resent her, I'm glad that I can be with you." Kate reached across the table and petted Laura's hand. "I really missed you when I couldn't be with you because of my training. Flying with you, getting to see the world together, that was the best time of my life."

"I missed you, too, and I'm so glad that all this turned out so well for you." Laura grasped her sister's hand and hold it tight. "I promise you, we'll see each other every time when I'm going to come to Paris."

"That'll be great. And who knows, maybe the next time we'll meet will be in Beirut."

Both Kate and Laura laughed out loud. Being with her sister felt just good, and Kate enjoyed it very much. And she was also happy to see that her sister seemed to have become an independent and strong woman. At the time they had been flying together, Kate had always felt obliged to take care of her inexperienced little sister, and when she had been forced to leave her, she had worried how she would do, being on her own for the first time in her life. She still remembered Laura in her bunny slippers in Jakarta, when she had told her to grow up. Now, eight months after leaving her, Kate saw Laura going her own way, and she no longer worried.

"So, Maggie and Broyles are a couple?" Kate asked her sister.

"Who knows, I don't really understand what is going on between those two." Laura shook her head. "Every time he's in town, he's at our apartment, and all the time they are whispering to each other like high school students in first love, and then they head out for dates and don't come back before next morning. But then, when he is away – and Broyles is out of town a lot, even by the standards of a Pan Am pilot, I have never met a man who travels so much –, or when Maggie is on a flight, she never seems to miss him. She never talks of him, she never calls him, she never does anything that would make you think that she has a boyfriend. And when Colette once asked her about Broyles, Maggie just denied that he even is her boyfriend at all."

"But when they are together, do they…" Kate paused, wondering how to finish her question without embarrassing Laura. Talking about this issue had always been a little bit awkward for Laura. But to Kate's surprise, Laura knew exactly what she was referring to, and she didn't hesitate to answer:

"All. The. Time!" she sighed. "At first, I left them alone every time Broyles came over, but I wasn't very keen of spending the whole month of February wandering the cold streets, and it's my apartment, too! But don't you think my presence would in any way bother them! Believe me, there have been nights at which I've thought about getting my own apartment, or at least talking to Maggie about moving to a new one with thicker walls."

Another moment of shared laughter confirmed to Kate that Laura really had changed a lot over the course of the last six months. She finished her coffee and looked at the clock, and her high spirits faded.

"I'm sorry, Laura, but I have to leave now." she said. "I have yet another appointment."

"An appointment?" Laura asked. "With whom?"

"Just an old friend, you don't know her." Kate answered. "We haven't met in a long time, and in contrast to you, she is no stewardess, so she can't just jet across the ocean to meet me in Paris."

"When will your flight to Paris departure?" Laura asked in a disappointed, but understanding voice.

"I'll take the evening flight. Are you going to be at the airport to say goodbye?"

"I have to be at the airport in just two hours for my flight to London." Laura smiled at her sister. "We're going to Tehran from there."

"Tehran! You are going to Tehran, and you envy me going to Beirut?" Kate answered, laughing again. "Oh little sister, I'm pretty confident your ways will lead you to Beirut, soon. And maybe they'll lead you to Paris even sooner."

Kate stood up, and Laura did so, too. The two sisters hugged each other on saying goodbye.

"Give all the others my best regards." Kate told her sister, and then they parted.

Kate didn't like lying to Laura. She and Laura were sisters, they had been growing up together, and it certainly hadn't been the first time she had lied to her. But since that day she had met Richard Parks, since she had started working for the CIA, lying had become a regular part of her life to an extent that frightened Kate. She didn't like the dishonesty that came with her second job, and she didn't like how easy it had gotten for her to lie to her sister and to everybody else she met. She wasn't going to meet an old friend, she had an appointment with Richard. Kate had asked for this meeting, and it had been the main reason for her to come to New York. Seeing Laura was just a side effect, a benefit she could only earn by lying to her sister.

When Kate arrived at the restaurant she had asked Richard to meet her at, he was already there, waiting for her. They greeted each other like old friends and then sat down at the table.

"Kate, what is all this about? Why did you ask me to come here." Richard asked when the waiter had left them alone after they both had ordered a light salad for dinner. His voice was calm and friendly, and he smiled at her, but she knew him well enough to tell from the undertone in his voice that he wasn't happy to see her at all. "We can't meet in a public place like this."

"Do you remember the time we met at the Worldport lobby – just one of the many times we did?" Kate retorted. "Or the one time we practiced pickpocketing in the middle of Central Park?"

"All that was when you were just a courier." Richard explained, still smiling for anyone who was watching them. "Things have changed, you can't just ask for a meeting with your case officer. You're a full-time operative now."

"Good that you tell me, I didn't really noticed." Kate paused when the waiter brought their drinks and the salad, but then she continued: "I wish I had had my postal uniform when I was in that club in Beirut, it would have made identification much easier for my contact."

"Is it that you want to talk about?" Richard picked at his salad as if he had just found out for the first time that a tuna salad contained fish. "Listen, I told you that there would be a lot of courier jobs in the beginning, and I thought that would be in your own interest. Besides, we can't really create custom missions just for you, 'Miss Bond'."

In stark contrast to his calm articulation before, Richard had hissed the last part at Kate, and even the smile disappeared from his face.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to complain." Kate looked at him to let him read her eyes, and she hoped he saw that she was honest. "I was just teasing you a little. Really, I don't have any problems with the Beirut job, and I didn't ask you to come here just because I want more action. I still have enough of that from my encounter with our German allies."

Richard looked at her, and then he nodded.

"I asked you for this meeting because I wanted to talk to you about someone I met in Beirut." Kate noticed the subtle changes in Richard's expression. His smile hadn't changed since he had greeted her, but the anger in his eyes had made room for puzzled curiosity. "I saw Niko Lonza in that nightclub, right after I had completed the exchange."

"Niko Lonza?!" Richard's fork stopped hovering in mid air. "Did you talk to him?"

"No, I didn't. I was a little imprecise when I said I had 'met' him. I saw him from across the room, and I don't think he saw me."

"So, you didn't see him from close, you didn't hear him speak, you didn't talk to him?" Richard waited for Kate's confirmation that came as a nod. "Then it wasn't Lonza, it was someone else. Someone looking like him, or someone you thought was looking like him."

"Why are you so sure that it wasn't Niko?" Kate inquired.

"Because I know that he wasn't there." Richard didn't seem bothered anymore. "I know for sure that he was in Belgrade on this day, just as he was in Belgrade on every single day since we sent him there. Lonza reports every step he makes to us. I'm no longer his principal case officer, but I still receive his reports. You don't need to know what he is doing in Belgrade, and what he is writing about in his reports. To be honest, that's above your security clearance. But I know, and I can assure you that Niko Lonza has never been in Beirut in his whole life, and especially not on the day you are talking about."

"Are you really sure about that?"

"Yes, I am."

Now it was Kate who as picking at her food while Richard had already finished most of his salad. Could it be possible that she had been wrong? The man she had seen had been standing at the far side of the room. Most people had been smoking, the air had been filled with smoke, and the lights had been low. And Kate had already had one or two glasses of wine, she couldn't even remember how many. She hadn't been drunk, but she hadn't been sober, either.

"Is everything okay?" Richard asked. He look genuinely concerned now, and Kate hurried to nod.

"I'm alright, it's just… I was really sure that the man I saw was him."

"Kate, please don't understand this wrong, but I have to ask you some questions." Richard took the napkin and cleaned the corners of his mouth. He paused before he went on: "Has something like this ever happened before? Have you ever been seeing people that weren't there, have you ever been hearing voices…"

"Do you think I'm crazy?" Kate's mouth nervously twitched into a insecure smile. "I'm not crazy!"

"Kate, I know about your history with Niko Lonza, the relationship you had. I remember how it ended, how he reacted on learning about you, what he said to you… I remember how hard all this was for you. And now, you were on your first mission, you were in a foreign country, alone, on your own… You were insecure, maybe even afraid…"

"I wasn't afraid." Kate interrupted him again. "I had already completed the exchange, there hadn't been any problems, everything was alright."

"Well, then maybe you were euphoric about your success." Richard used his fork to pick up the last piece of tuna and ate it. "It's perfectly normal to experience signs of emotional stress when you are in a situation you've never been in before."

"Nothing about this situation was new to me, nothing was particularly stressful." Kate had to restrain herself to keep talking calm and slow. She placed both her hands on the table and looked Richard in the eye. "I was trained for situations like this. And I had already been in situations like this many times before I even completed my training. I did not experience emotional stress, and I am not crazy."

Richard looked at her and didn't say a word. Kate didn't speak either, and for several seconds they just sat there in silence.

"I see." Richard finally said. "So, what happened?"

"I'm not sure." Kate lost the tense posture she had been holding. "It was dark, the room was crowded, I only saw him from far away, I had had a few drinks…"

Her voice trailed off and eventually faded when she herself was no longer sure what or who she had been seeing. She wasn't crazy, she hadn't been overwhelmed by the situation, but she had to admit to herself that the man she had seen had almost certainly not been Niko. She felt stupid for even bothering Richard with this. And after what she had told him, he most probably thought that she was stupid, too. Or even worse…

"Listen, Kate," Richard broke the silence that had fallen on them again. "I know you, I know you very well, and I trust in you and your capabilities as an operative. That's why I recommended you for admission to the agency in the first place. I know that you get emotional at times, but I also know that you do great work even under stress, even when you are emotional, and maybe especially then. You saved my life, you busted Anderson, and you've never failed us."

Richard paused for a moment to make sure that Kate understood that he really didn't think that she was crazy.

"And you have to understand that all your actions in matters of Niko Lonza were just another example of the great work you are doing. Don't be in doubts about it, don't blame yourself for anything in this regard. Don't let yourself be haunted by it, but draw strength from it! It was the right thing to do!"

Kate looked down at her plate and let Richard's words sink in. She could very well remember her feelings when the agency's agents had come for Niko, when she had tried to explain it to him, and when he had congratulated her on being a 'professional'. Back then, it had felt like the meanest and most insulting thing he could have possibly said to her. And now, Richard was telling her to take it as a compliment, to draw strength from it. Intellectually, she knew that he was right. But she wasn't sure she could ever accept this emotionally.


	3. Spy meets Spy

_Pan Am – "____We'll Always Have Beirut_"

**Spy meets Spy  
**

_v1.0.1 (June 22, 2013)_

First and foremost, Kate was a Pan Am stewardess, and she was in Paris to be available whenever Pan Am needed her service as such. But it had still come to Kate as kind of a surprise when she hadn't been contacted by the agency in any way after she had been called upon to serve on a flight from London to Istanbul. She had awaited a call from her 'father' when she had been waiting for her deadheading flight to London, she had expected to be contacted by a MI6 agent upon arriving there, and by the time she had reached Istanbul, she had already become a little bit nervous. Had something gone wrong? Had she missed the contact, had she overlooked a signal? But there hadn't been any signals, nobody had contacted her, and Kate had finally realized that this was just exactly what it appeared to be – a regular Pan Am assignment without any involvement by the CIA. The other stewardesses of her flight crew had told her that the woman Kate was filling in for had sprained her ankle just the other day, and from their accounts Kate took it that there had been no inference by a third party whatsoever.

Once Kate had realized that solely her work as a Pan Am stewardess was required on this flight, she had been able to relax and enjoy it. She really was enjoying doing the work she had been enjoyed doing for so long even before she had met Richard for the first time. She had always wanted to be a stewardess, and nothing else, and she really felt happy to be just that. And she was also delighted by the opportunity to see Istanbul. She had been there only once before, but she hadn't got to see much of it then. But even more importantly, she had seen the latest James Bond film, _From Russia with Love_, just two weeks ago. Getting to see all the places from the movie, like Hagia Sophia and Sirkeci Terminal, was really exciting, and Kate and the other stewardesses even had gone for a boat trip across the Bosphorus just like Sean Connery and Daniela Bianchi had done.

And there had been yet another pleasant surprise for Kate when she had learnt that they wouldn't return straight to London, but that there would be a stopover in Munich. That meant that she could finally do some sightseeing in the city just as she had told Gustav and Herbert. She had invited the other girls to join her, but her proposal hadn't been welcomed by them. They only had a six hours stay in Munich, and getting from the airport in the suburb of Riem to the city would eat up a considerable part of the time. One of the stewardesses had also told her that Munich was dull and boring, at least compared to Istanbul, and that it wasn't worth the effort.

But Kate had been determined to make her cover story come true, at least for this time, and so she had gone on her own. She found Munich to be a hospitable and charming place, although she couldn't help but think that it was in some ways even more foreign to her than Istanbul or Beirut. It was a beautiful September day, just perfect for wandering the streets of the Bavarian capital, and Kate enjoyed it. She was wondering whether her friends in New York were enjoying themselves just as good at the same time. She imagined all her friends at Worldport, Colette and Dean, Maggie, Sanjeev, Ted, and her sister Laura, and she wished she could be with them at this happy day.

Kate was already on her way to the bus station from which she would shuttle back to the airport when she passed an Italian ice cream parlor. On this sunny and warm day of early fall, all the seats were occupied with people. When Kate looked over the crowd, she noticed a familiar face, and this time, she was absolutely sure that it was the man she knew from her last stay in Munich: Herbert. He was sitting at the table most distant from Kate, and he was talking to a young woman. They shared one giant sundae. She laughed at one of his jokes, and they were both holding hands. Seeing the man she had met as a cold-blooded, Gestapo-like interrogator with his happy girlfriend was a strange experience for Kate.

During her time in Langley, Kate had been prepared for situations like this. If she ever met a person she knew professionally in a private context, she was not allowed to make contact. It was a simple, but important rule, and lives could depend on sticking to it. Kate turned on her heels and looked for a side street that would take her to her destination without passing the ice cream parlor at all. But then she stopped. What if this was an one-time opportunity? She most probably wouldn't come back to Munich anytime soon, and she certainly wouldn't randomly meet Herbert again. Kate slowly turned around again. Right in this moment, the woman raised from her seat and left, maybe for the ladies' restroom. Herbert stayed behind at his table, alone. This one-time opportunity had just gotten even more tempting.

Kate's feet made the decision for her.

"What a lovely day, isn't it?"

Kate had closed in on the table in Herbert's back, and when she seated herself on the chair his girlfriend had occupied, Herbert was so surprised that he nearly knocked over the sundae bowl.

"Miss Cameron, what are you…"

"Please, no names!" Kate interrupted him and smiled teasingly. She put her purse on the table and made herself comfortable. "We both are professionals."

"Then what are you doing here, talking to me, in public!" Herbert's sentence came in shape of a question, but it sounded nothing like this. "What do you want from me?"

"You are perfectly right, I really want something from you." Kate answered, ignoring his angry stare. "I need a file from your archives, from your employer's archive, to be more precise."

"A file? What file?" Herbert was no longer staring at Kate but nervously looked over to the entrance of the ice cream parlor. Kate could tell that he really was anxious by his accent, that was far stronger now than it had been at their last meeting. "I can't give you any files."

"I don't want just any file, I'm interested in one person only. A Yugoslavian diplomat, formerly attached to the United Nations, he served in the United States, but he returned to Yugoslavia last year. His name is Niko Lonza."

"I repeat: I can't give you any files!" Herbert was getting more and more nervous the longer Kate was talking to him. "I'm not allowed to hand out classified files to strangers."

"Oh, Herbert, calling me a stranger is harsh. Didn't we part as allies?" Kate smiled sarcastically, but then she got serious. She extended her right arm and pointed at the small red mark. Contrary to what the German doctor had promised her, the scar was still there. "You owe me something."

"I don't owe you anything. This was business!" Herbert hissed at her, getting even more angry now. But Kate noticed that his anger was only defensive when he continued: "Besides, I don't know whether I have access to this file you want, I don't even know whether we have a file on this man at all!"

"Well, I won't leave until you promised me to at least look for it." Kate leaned back on the chair and let her gaze wander across the tables, and her eyes came to rest on the entrance Herbert was watching, too. "I'm curious, what are you going to tell your girlfriend who I am? Or do you want me to make something up? I'm quite good at this…"

"You can get into real trouble for blackmailing a government agent, even if he's not working for your own government. This incident will be brought to your superiors' notice." Herbert had been whispering since his first words, but now his voice had gotten even lower.

"Blackmailing?" Kate acted the innocent. "What could I use to blackmail you? I mean, it isn't like you're married and having an affair or something like this…"

This time, Herbert didn't answer at all. He stared at Kate, outright shocked, and for a second, she even felt sorry for doing this to him.

"My dear Herbert, if that's even your real name, let me tell you something about me: I'm not only a spy, I'm also a stewardess, and most importantly, I'm a woman." she explained. "I've seen friends of mine falling for married men, I myself have been approached by married men more than once, and I've learnt to see the signs. You don't wear the ring, but your skin still shows the mark. Your finger has a tan line. Next summer, wear an unsuspicious signet ring to cover it up."

Herbert's left hand involuntarily touched his right ring finger. Until this moment, Kate hadn't even known that Germans wore the wedding ring on their right hand, but the mark was too familiar, and she had given it a shot. It had been a direct hit.

"What did you say his name was? Niklas Londsa?"

"Niko Lonza, with a 'z'." Kate corrected Herbert and smiled satisfied. She raised from the chair and took her purse. Before she left, she bent halfway down to Herbert and looked him in the eye. "Does she know?"

"No, she doesn't, at least I think so." His left hand was still absentmindedly stroking his right ring finger. "My wife doesn't know either."

The German didn't seem to care any longer, he didn't even look relieved to see Kate leaving.

"You know, sometimes I think about how our job and all the lying that comes with it influences our lives. If you lie to everybody, then how…"

"Please, don't get preachy! You're in the same business, and you are the one blackmailing me for a classified file."

Herbert had gotten angry again, and he looked up at Kate, glaring at her with blazing eyes.

"I'm just asking a good friend for a small favor."

Kate smiled at him, but this time, she was neither teasing him nor laughing at him. She was already wearing her smile as a mask, making sure that every random observer would take it as that: two friends parting after an innocent chat.

"And there she comes." she whispered, and when Herbert turned towards his mistress, Kate quickly stepped away from his table and headed out for the bus station. She had to catch a plane.

– – – –

One of the biggest downsides of Kate's position as a standby stewardess was the obvious fact that she was on standby 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Paris was a great and wonderful city, but Kate really hadn't seen much of it since she had moved here. Every morning, she put on her uniform and went to the airport, and then she sat there, waiting in the staff room or at the lobby, waiting for the call that, most of the time, didn't come. Even at the end of the day, when she went back home, that didn't mean that she was free to go where she wanted to go to. She was expected to be available at all the time, and so she had to stay at home, waiting again, this time for the ring of her own telephone.

Only slowly, Kate and her base manager at Orly airport were developing a system that made it possible for Pan Am to get in touch with her whenever it was necessary and at the same time allowed Kate to move a little bit more freely. Depositing her uniform and all the personal effects she needed for a three day trip in a locker at the airport had only been the first step. Over the last weeks, she had started to build a network of places – mostly stores, restaurants, and cafés – at which she was known and at which there was a telephone the base manager could call. It still wasn't perfect, though. She was restricted to a limited set of locations she could spend her time at, and every time she left her apartment she had to inform her supervisors first. Most of the time, she came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the effort.

Kate had become accustomed to living in constant anticipation of a phone call, but on this day, someone knocked on the door. When Kate opened and saw who was standing outside, she was even more surprised.

"Richard!" she said, and only after a short pause: "Welcome! Please, come in! What brings you here?"

"Well, this time I'm the one who should be wearing a blue uniform." Richard answered cryptically when he stepped into Kate's apartment. "I bring the mail."

He waved a big, brown envelope.

"You come here for a briefing at my place?" Kate watched as Richard took off his jacket. "That must be an important mission coming at me."

"No briefing, no mission, just delivering the mail."

Richard stepped into the living room and placed the envelope on the coffee table. Kate followed him, still puzzled by his remarks. For a moment, they both stood there in silence, and then Richard uninvitedly took a seat on one of Kate's armchairs.

"And you know what, considering what kind of mail brought me here, there shouldn't be any new missions for you, never again!"

"What are you talking about?" Kate asked, but Richard just pointed at the envelope. She picked it up and examined the brown paper. It had been sent by diplomatic pouch and was addressed to Richard's fake office address in New York, with an additional note to forward it to her. Kate turned the stiff wrapper and read the sender's address: '_Bundesvermögensverwaltung, Abteilung Sondervermögen, Außenstelle Pullach_'. Kate's German was still terrible, and she had always had a hard time with the German custom of constructing compounds, but even before she completed the translation, she knew what it meant: 'Federal Administration of Property, Department of Special Assets, Pullach branch office' – more commonly known as the German Federal Intelligence Service, the BND.

"How dare you to contact an allied agency's agent and ask him for a classified case file! How dare you to disrespect virtually all security guidelines just because of your personal interests! You endangered not only the U.S.-Germany government relations, but especially the good working relations between the CIA and the BND! You acted even more unprofessionally than in Berlin, and back then, you were just a low-level courier. You were supposed to have learnt doing better since then! You are a fully trained full-time intelligence operative now!"

Richard was still sitting in the arm chair, and he hadn't even raised his voice against her, but Kate felt like she had been scolded by her father for being put in detention in junior high. Even back then on that August day in Munich, she had know that what she was doing was wrong. But since then, she had realized what she had done more and more clearly. It was only the smallest of her mistakes that she had forgotten to give Herbert her private address – you'd think an intelligence officer could find her anyway. But this mistake had only lead to the revelation of her wrongdoing. Richard was absolutely right, and he was also right in comparing it to what she had done in Berlin. Saving Anke had been against all orders, it had been unprofessional, and it had been dangerous, but in that moment, it had been the right thing to do. But blackmailing Herbert for Niko's file had been wrong in every way.

"You are lucky that you were right, otherwise you would be an ex-operative by now." Richard leaned back and allowed for a thin smile to sneak onto his face. "You wanted his file, now read it!"

Kate sat down on the couch opposite Richard and opened the envelope. She took a binder from it, and then she delved into the file. As it turned out, it contained only a few sheets of paper, but German officialese was even worse than common speech. After a few sentences, she stood up to fetch her dictionary. Even with its help, translating the reports and analyses in the file was time-consuming. At one point, she realized that Richard had made her some coffee. When she finally had read the last page, she felt vindicated and was disappointed at the same time.

"So, the man I saw really was Niko, he really was in Beirut."

"In fact, he has been to Beirut every other week since May." Richard confirmed.

"But why?"

The first third of the file on Niko dealt with his work at the United Nations in New York, and it even included a short notice on his affair with a Pan Am stewardess. Most of the rest was filled with speculations about the reasons for his return to Belgrade. Obviously, the CIA hadn't informed the Germans about their interference in this point, and the conclusions Herbert's peers had drawn were far away from what had actually happened. Only one single page reported on Niko's activities since then, and although the short list of travel dates confirmed is presence in Beirut at the same day Kate had been there, it didn't give any relevant additional information.

"The Germans don't have a clue, or maybe they don't even care, but our people have some ideas about that." Richard poured Kate a new cup of coffee from the pot he had prepared when she had been reading and then tapped his index finger at the first date on the last page of the file. "Look, he traveled to Beirut on May 25, returned to Belgrade for one day, visited Cairo on May 27, and then he went to East Jerusalem on May 28. From there, he went straight to Beirut on June 1, and from then on, he came to Beirut every other Monday."

"So it has something to do not only with Lebanon, but also Egypt and Jordan?" Kate still had no clue what Richard was talking about.

"Do you know what happened in East Jerusalem on May 28?" he asked her.

One year ago, Kate hadn't even known that there was a difference between East and West Jerusalem, that the holy city was one of many divided cities in these days. To be honest, she had been only interested in what was going on in the world as far as it affected her work as a Pan Am stewardess, and since Pan Am didn't serve Jerusalem at all, it hadn't been part of her mental map. But since her stay in Langley, she had become more sensitive for international politics, because it might turn out relevant for what she had to deal with at her second job. And she even remembered actually having read about what happened on this date at 'the farm'.

"The first meeting of the Palestinian National Council, and the foundation of the Palestine Liberation Organization." Kate recollected from her memories. "Do you think Niko has something to do with it?"

"We are pretty sure." Richard leaned back in his armchair and looked at Kate. "Remember the time he was in New York, serving at the U.N.! He had good relations with the Egyptians, and he meet them quite often. This made perfectly sense: both Egypt and Yugoslavia consider themselves the most important among the nonaligned countries, even though the Yugos are commies and the Egyptians aren't any better. This PLO may be claiming to be the 'legitimate representative' of the Palestinian people, and it may be based in Jordan, but everybody knows that it really is under total control of Cairo. Belgrade is interested in cooperating with Egypt, and helping the PLO is basically the same thing. In a way, it's even more close to their own interests, because most of those terrorist groups are Marxist-Leninist, with a little bit of nationalism mixed in, just as the Yugos themselves. And they are very proud of their history during the war, of how their partisans kicked the Germans out of their country. They most probably even consider the PLO a true 'liberation organization', and not the bunch of terrorists they really are."

"Okay, all that makes sense." Kate nodded and then finished the image Richard had begun painting: "Niko has been Belgrade's contact to Cairo for years, and when the Egyptians created the PLO, he was assigned to organize Yugoslavia's support for the Palestinians. Since he is a trusted friend of the Egyptians, he was accepted by the PLO as their contact. He is only going to Beirut, so he is only responsible for some of the PLO's members, the ones based in Lebanon. Every other Monday, he flies down to Beirut and meets them, and they talk about how the former partisans of the Balkans can assist the freedom fighters of today's Middle East." She looked at Richard and asked: "So, what are we going to do about it?"

"'We' aren't going to do anything about it." Richard answered, placing special emphasis on the pronoun. "I'm not responsible for Lonza, haven't been for quite some time now, and after this revelation, his case has been transferred to whole new levels of competence. As I said when I arrived, I haven't come here to brief you for a new mission."

Richard put his cup of coffee down and raised from his armchair. He stepped over to Kate's couch and sat down next to her.

"I came here because I owe you an apology." Richard said. He was very serious now, and Kate could feel that his words carried much respect and came deep out of his heart. "You weren't crazy, you weren't emotionally stressed, you were absolutely right. I didn't believe you, because I thought I'd know better, but I were the one who was wrong. You followed your instinct, and you were right doing so. Without you taking action, the agency wouldn't have found out about this. You did a great deed for the CIA, yet again, and you really are a great agent."

Richard looked her in the eye and let his words sink in.

"Still, what you did was against all rules. As your case officer, I have to at least admonish you for it."

Richard's smirk told Kate that he wasn't too serious about this last part, but she understood what he meant. As he had said, she was lucky that she wasn't an ex-operative by now.

"I know, I'm not going to do something like this again." Kate said, and in this moment, she really meant it. "But I want to know what's going to happen next. What does all that mean for Niko?"

"Well, first of all, it means that we can't trust his reports any longer." Richard leaned back and gestured with his hand. "Since we sent him back to Yugoslavia, Lonza reported back to us, as we had told him to do, and we though he was our man at Belgrade. But he has never reported on his involvement with the PLO, in fact, he hasn't even mentioned leaving Belgrade at all. If he had been open about it, we would have been perfectly happy with it, because it would have meant that we had a spy not only in the Yugoslavian diplomatic corps, but also in the PLO. But since his reports were false, we have to act on the assumption that he was lying to us all the time. We can't determine the exact moment when he turned."

"Turned?" Kate asked, and Richard nodded.

"The only explanation for his behavior is that he has turned for the Yugoslavians. He's a double agent now – or a triple agent, bearing in mind that he already was working for the Yugos when we recruited him in the first place." Richard made a dismissive gesture. "It's not important what we call it, the important thing is that we know about it – thanks to you. Dealing with agents who turned for the other side is always delicate, but we might even be able to take advantage of this situation. He doesn't know that we know about him, and that opens new opportunities. At this point, I can't see how he could be of use for us, but we have specialists for cases like this, and they've already taken over this case. They will come up with a plan in the end."

"I might be able to help." Kate said, and she didn't care that her voice was telling Richard more about how enthusiastic she was than she wanted him to know. She couldn't help herself. She had wanted to turn around and avoid Herbert when she had seen him in Munich, but she hadn't. She simply wasn't able to keep unemotional and professional when it came to Niko, she simply wasn't able to let go of an opportunity to see him again. The best she could do was rationalizing it, but she could never give it up, and in this situation, she couldn't hide it either. "I know him, he knows me… I could contact him, talk to him. I can find out what happened. He'll tell me!"

"No, Kate, no!"

Richard had interrupted her quickly, but then he paused. He seemed to realize how emotional she had gotten, had been all the time, and he leaned over and took Kate's hand. Kate couldn't remember him taking her hand ever before, and when he looked her deep into the eye again, she got even more emotional.

"Kate, we've known each other for a long time. We have had our differences, we've had rough times, and more than just once I were doubting that it had been a good idea to bring you into this business. But every time I gave you a new task, you succeeded, and every time you did better than you had done before. You've become a great agent, and you've proven more valuable for the agency than I could have ever imagined. And yes, sometimes, you did the wrong thing, but you've always done it for the right reasons. You found out about this, you saved Anke's life, and most importantly, you saved my life. I'm your case officer, you're my subordinate, and together we're an effective team, but that's not how I would describe our relationship. I care for you."

Richard paused again, and Kate could feel that he really did care for her. She wasn't sure how she would have described their relationship, but she knew that she trusted Richard.

"I'm not giving you a sermon as your superior, I'm talking to you as a man who holds you in high regard as a person. I care for you, and I don't want you get hurt." he continued. "I don't claim to know what you are feeling for Lonza. I don't. Maybe you're still feeling the same for him as you felt back then, or maybe you're just feeling burdened with guilt because of what you did, and this burden is the only thing left of him. I do know that your feelings make you believe that meeting Lonza could somehow resolve this. But it can't, and even worse, it would only hurt you. You have to fully understand what we've just talked about: Lonza turned, he's an enemy agent now! You believe that it would be a good thing to send you to him, a good thing for the agency, and a good thing for you. But it wouldn't, because you're acting on the wrong assumption that it is in some way meaningful that he knows you, and you know him. But you don't. The Niko Lonza you once knew does no longer exist."


	4. Scars of the Past

_Pan Am – "We'll Always Have Beirut"_

**Scars of the Past  
**

_v1.0.1 (June 23, 2013)_

It had been seven busy days for Kate. In fact, this past week had been even more busy than most of the weeks during her time as a regular stewardess based in New York. On Monday, she had been sent to Morocco, filling in for a stewardess that had – 'somehow' – lost her passport at her stopover in London. Kate had picked up a small parcel from a dead letter box in Marrakesh, and on the return flight to London, she had secretly placed the parcel in a passenger's cabin baggage. She still had no clue what had been in this parcel, but the man who had tried to walk through British customs with it had been singled out to have a little conversation with the authorities.

When she had returned to Paris on Wednesday morning, Kate had been informed that her services were needed again before she could even leave the airport for her apartment. A stewardess had been hit by a car in Rome, a terrible accident, but just that – an accident. Kate had served as the poor woman's substitute on the flight back to New York. Unfortunately, the crew of the _Clipper Majestic_ had been at Rio de Janeiro on this day, and so there had been no opportunity for a reunion with her friends. Yet again Kate hadn't got to see Ted and his wife, and so she had taken the next flight back to Paris.

She had found some time to recover from those two flights on Friday, but on Saturday there had been new work for her. In Tehran – the stewardess who had been supposed to go there had been arrested in London, which later had turned out to have been a very 'unfortunate' case of mistaken identity –, she had met her contact at the bazaar. There were certainly more than enough American agents in Iran, but most of them were known to the Shah's secret police, and so she had been brought in as an unknown face for this delicate job. There had been yet another reason for this, though, because the 'job' consisted of keeping an official in the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum occupied for the whole evening so that Kate's partner in crime had enough time to search the official's home for some documents. Although the man had been surprisingly charming, and at any rate not the 'pain in the ass' as Kate's contact had described him, he definitely wasn't Kate's type, and also at least 20 years older than her. Kate had been very happy that he had given in without any dispute when she had declined his invitation to spend the night at his place.

Three sorties in just six days. On Sunday, Kate's base manager had taken her aside at Orly airport and had confessed to her that he had been skeptical about the need for a standby stewardess at first. But this week had convinced him otherwise, and when a fourth assignment had come in on Monday, he had even thanked Kate for her sacrificial service. Little did he know that two of the four times Kate's services had been needed, there wouldn't have been any need for a standby stewardess at all if this specific stewardess hadn't been a CIA operative. Kate couldn't even imagine how he reacted if he would learn that her trip to Beirut on Monday was result solely of her own desire for it.

Kate was a trained CIA agent, and she had been pretty confident that she would be capable of arranging for an opportunity to go to Beirut. By fortunate coincidence, it had been even easier than she had hoped for. When Kate had approached the four stewardesses in question for a little small talk, knowing that one of them had to stay in Paris for the night to make room for herself, they had all been very interested in her unusual activities as Pan Am's European standby stewardess. Telling them about this week's three trips, one of the women had told her that she herself had been to Tehran just little over a week ago. Her name was Liz, and talking about her own trip to Persia, she and Kate found out that they had common friends: Tehran had been Liz's last flight as part of the crew of the _Clipper Majestic_ before her transfer to her current crew. For four weeks, the other woman had been filling the gap that Kate had left in the lines of her old crew. Kate and Liz had spent the whole evening chatting about Dean, Ted, Sanjeev, Colette, Laura, and Maggie – especially Maggie, who had quite impressed the young stewardess. Kate had shared some stories about her own adventures with Maggie, and after just a few hours, she and Liz had felt like old friends. This circumstance had made it very easy for Kate to ask Liz a favor, and when she had offered to chip in 150 new francs to Liz's regular per diem, Liz hadn't even asked any questions. Liz had called in sick the next morning, and Kate had 'earned' herself her base manager's special thanks.

Only a few hours later, Kate was standing at the top floor in the very same nightclub she had been at exactly two weeks ago. This time, she was without any company, and her first interest was to make sure that it would stay like that. She watched the entrance, examining everyone who came in, and she wasn't just looking out for Niko, but also for a certain other someone. And as she had anticipated, it was this other person who came through the door only little time after she herself had arrived. The man and his date chose to settle at a table near the dance floor, and Kate waited until they were seated before she walked down the stairs and approached the couple.

"Oh, hello, nice to see you." Kate said when she stepped into the man's vision. No need for the old hour-of-the-day routine this time, he immediately recognized her from their last encounter. "I'm here with George. Maybe the three of us can have a little chat later on."

Kate hadn't even stopped for this short greeting, and without giving the man or his companion any time to respond she walked on to the restrooms. And then, she waited. Kate couldn't have a discussion with the other agent in front of his girlfriend, and so she hoped that he would follow her sooner or later. She also understood that he couldn't just leave her sitting alone to meet another woman, at least not if he interested in inconspicuousness in any way, so she was prepared to wait for some minutes. But the longer Kate had to wait in front of the restrooms, the more nervous she got. Niko could come in at any time, and she didn't want to miss him. It would be even worse if Niko came in before she had the opportunity to talk to her colleague. With every person that passed her on her or his way to the restrooms, with every minute that ticked by, it got more tempting for Kate to return to the main room. Eventually, she started to fear that it had already been too late, that Niko had already arrived. When she finally saw the man coming in her direction, she felt great relief.

"That's not the woman I paid a drink last time." Kate opened the conversation. "Is she as 'happy' to see me as your last date?"

"I told her I knew you from the office. You are 'George's' girlfriend, I suppose." he answered. "But I'm certainly surprised to see you again. What are you doing here?"

"Didn't you tell me we would meet again soon?" Kate smiled at him, but then she remembered that she had no time for playful banter. "I'm here for Lonza, he's my job."

"Nobody told me. I was sent here to find out whether he would meet someone."

"There isn't any meaningful meeting going to happen here. More importantly, the powers that be have decided that keeping him under surveillance is a waste of time. I'm here to make contact."

"But I received my orders just two hours ago, how…"

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" Kate insisted. "I personally know him and this makes me predestined to make contact. They wouldn't have sent me here all the way from Paris if I was just to watch him drinking at a bar."

For a moment, it seemed to Kate as if the man whose name she still didn't knew would answer back. But then he gave in.

"Shoot! It hasn't been easy to talk her into coming here, she hates this place." he said instead.

"Your other girlfriend seemed to like it quite much." Kate replied sneeringly. "But you have to leave! Lonza mustn't see you here, in case we need you as a fresh face later."

"I see. Okay, give me five minutes, then we'll be gone."

They parted, and while the man returned to his table on a straight path, Kate made sure to not be seen by the woman that was waiting at it. When she saw them raise from their seats, Kate went upstairs to return to her observation point. Now she had to be patient. She had come to the nightclub very early, on purpose so, and so had the man she had just driven off. It still was as early as half past nine.

Although Kate had planed all this since her meeting with Richard in Paris, this was the first time she actually thought about what she was going to say. And she thought about what Niko would say. When they both had seen each other for the last time, at Worldport, it had seemed as if Niko had gotten over what had happened. They both hadn't been free to speak their mind openly, but they had at least talked to each other. Based on this memory, Kate could have been optimistic about how Niko would react when he would see her.

But could Kate really base her assumptions about Niko's reaction on just this moment? She remembered what Richard had said to her, that Niko was no longer the man she knew. He knew her, she had told the other agent, and that was the problem. He knew that she was working for the CIA. At the same time, he was lying to them for at least four months. If she showed up now, he had to assume that she had been sent for him. Would he react hostile? After all, Richard had already considered him an enemy agent. Would Niko do the same in Kate's respect, would he see her as an enemy?

Kate instantly recognized Niko when he entered the nightclub. He was alone, as he had been two weeks ago, and exactly like then he went over to the bar and took a seat at it. He ordered a drink, and when he got it, he just sat at the bar and sipped at it. Kate watched him from the upper floor. Everywhere around him, people were chatting, laughing, dancing, enjoying themselves. But Niko had no one to talk with, no one to laugh with, no one to dance with. He looked so lonely, so sad. Kate wanted to go down to him, she wanted to be the one he could talk with, she wanted to listen to him, laugh at his jokes, and she wanted to make him laugh. But she was afraid that he wouldn't enjoy her presence at all.

Kate finally plucked up her courage and went downstairs. Just like last time, she had to cross the crowed room to reach Niko, but this time, she didn't hurry. When she came closer to him, her steps got slower, and she finally stopped two feet away from him. He had his back turned towards her and was staring at his drink, so he wouldn't see her. She had to make the first step.

"Hello Niko, it's me, Kate."

The room was swarming with people, they were all laughing and chatting, and the band played. It was loud, and at first, Kate feared that he hadn't heard her. But she felt so stupid for opening up with such a banal sentence that she couldn't just repeat it. For one or two seconds, Niko showed no sign that he had noticed her. But then he slowly turned around and looked at her. His face showed his emotions. Kate had always been able to read his face like an open book, and she had loved him for this. She had loved that she could always tell what he was feeling. Now, she saw surprise on his face, saw it being replaced by joy, and then shock. As fast as the shock had come, it went away, and now anger dominated his facial expression.

He quickly took some Lebanese pound notes from his jacket and put them onto the bar. At the same time, he had already stood up. After the first second, he had averted his eyes from Kate, and now he stepped past her, without saying anything, without even looking at her. He didn't run, he didn't hurry, but his steps were determined.

"Niko, please, wait!" Kate exclaimed, and she followed him. She walked just next to him as he went to the exit. "Niko, I want to talk to you."

He didn't stop. He passed through the cloakroom and reached the street. He was still pacing slow enough for Kate to follow him without any problems. But he also still didn't look at her.

"Niko, we haven't seen each other for one year. Please, can we talk?"

Niko went along the Avenue de Paris. At other times, Kate had enjoyed walking side by side with the strong, tall man. But now, she wasn't walking with him, but rather just next to him. Over and over again, Kate tried to get through to him. But when he didn't acknowledge her presence at all, she became more and more frustrated. All the people around her were happy, or at least showed any kind of emotion. But whenever Kate looked at Niko's face, she couldn't see any emotion at all. Even the anger had faded away, and his face was like stone. For the first time, Kate couldn't read Niko's face, and it shocked her. At the same time, there was no need to read his face to understand what he was thinking of her, his whole body was shouting it out loud. Kate had never seen him like this before.

After five minutes of walking, they both finally reached a hotel. Niko went up to its entrance, and Kate sensed that this was her last chance. After having talked to him without getting any reaction, she decided to force him to at least admit that she was existing in the same world as he did. She reached out for his shoulder and pulled him back as strong as she could.

"Niko, I won't leave…"

His right hand dashed forward and he grabbed her right arm. His grip was strong, and violent. His fingers pressed her forearm to the bone, and pain cut across Kate's body. But the physical pain was nothing compared to what she felt when she saw his face. This time, she could read his emotions on it. The anger had returned, and it had gotten even stronger. Kate felt Niko's emotions, and she had never felt something like this before. She had expected hate, and she would have accepted it, but what she felt in Niko was anger, despair, and fear. But mostly anger.

"Kate, you will leave at once, you will go away, and you won't ever return, or try to talk to me ever again. I won't listen to you, and I won't talk to you, never. If you go now, this will never have happened, and we'll always have New York. But if you don't go, I will hurt you, I will be mean and cruel to you. But I won't talk to you."

Niko was angry, and he got even more angry while talking to her. Kate could tell not only by his face, but also by his grip that got tighter and tighter. He was violently squeezing her arm, and when his hand slightly turned, Kate feared he would break her bone.

"You hurt me." she whispered.

Niko looked down at his hand, and then his gaze returned to her eyes.

"I'm willing to hurt you even more if you…"

Niko stopped. His grip still didn't ease, but his eyes turned down at his hand again. He slightly turned it, and he stared at it like he had never seen his own hand before. It took Kate some seconds to realize that he wasn't staring at his own hand. He stared at the small red burn scar that could be seen right between his thumb and his forefinger. Then, finally, his grip faded. Niko still had his hand at Kate's arm, but it was merely resting there now. His fingers gently touched the small mark, and when his hand changed its position on her arm, Kate could take a look at the back of Niko's right hand. There were three circular scars on it.

– – – –

One year had passed since they both had been together for the last time. To Kate, it felt like it had been no more than a day. After all this time in which she had been mourning for him, all the weeks she had tried to deal with it, all the months in which she really had forgotten about Niko, and finally the last few days since she had seen him again, after all that time, it had been as if he had never left her. She still felt safer in his arms than at any other place in the world, and he still knew her body better than any other man had ever known it. Niko had not only made Kate feel emotionally safe, but he had also given her the sensual pleasure she had desired nearly as much as his presence in her life. And she had made sure that he enjoyed it as much as she did.

Thinking about it now, it even seemed a little inappropriate that the first thing they had done after this scene on the street had been having sex. But they both had needed it. Niko had told Kate that he was willing to hurt her, but now, he had shown her that he could only do exactly the opposite of hurting her. They both had needed this act of intimacy to ensure each other that everything that had been said was meaningless compared to what they both felt. But after their carnal desires had healed their emotional wounds, it was time to talk, and Niko began by talking about Kate's body:

"Who did this to you?" he said. After they had explored every inch of Kate's body, his fingers now returned to the mark on her forearm.

"A German counterspy." she answered, and without any particular reason she added: "His name is Herbert."

"Nazi pig." Niko spat out the words, and for a moment, Kate feared that his anger would destroy the moment.

"He is no Nazi." she said, and then added: "He's a pig, though. He cheats on his wife with a woman who doesn't even know that he's married."

Niko didn't respond to that, and Kate looked at him. They were both lying on the bed in his hotel room, and they both didn't wear any cloths. Kate saw his body, and her eyes returned to what she had seen for the first time when she had taken of his shirt. A little over an hour ago, it had shocked her to see the scars on his right arm, but they both had been driven by desire, and she hadn't let herself be slowed down by them. Now, Kate forced her gaze to rest on the archipelago of red, circular scars that covered the right side of Niko's body.

"Who did this to you?" she asked the same question he had asked.

"A Serbian secret police officer." Niko explained. "He was a lowly lieutenant, whose only job was to 'prepare' me for the talk a higher ranking officer was going to have with me. He wasn't very creative at his work."

"What else did they do to you?"

"They didn't torture me other than that, at least not physically. I spent some days in a prison cell, and I had some very unpleasant conversations with some of Tito's henchmen, that's all."

Niko's voice sounded as if he was talking about a merely mildly inconvenient episode, something that had happened long ago and that he was able to laugh about by now. But Kate could see his face, and she could read his emotions on it. It had been a hard time for him, and thinking about it still hurt him, more than he was willing to show to her, and even more than he was willing to admit to himself. Kate wondered if it had hurt Niko so much that it had been enough to make him turn.

"I'm able to bear it." Niko assured Kate, but she barely believed him. "But I'm not able to bear the thought that you had to experience the same." Kate looked at his face, and she believed him.

"I haven't experienced anything remotely close to what you had to undergo." Kate said. Her hand touched Niko's scars again, but then it left his arm and moved to his strong chest. "Don't worry about what happened in the past."

Kate wished she could just lie here, with Niko, his strong arms wrapped around her body, her hand feeling his slow heartbeat in his chest, and her head resting on his broad shoulder. She didn't want to think about what had happened, and she didn't want to think about what was going to happen either. She just wanted to enjoy this moment of perfection with Niko.

But when Richard had warned her that Niko was no longer the man she had known, he should have added that she also was no longer the woman she had been. Six months at Langley had changed her. She hadn't behaved like a perfect agent to get here, on the contrary, she had disrespected her superior, she had lied to her associate, she had disobeyed direct orders. It hadn't been Catherine Cameron, the obedient CIA agent, who had come to Beirut on this Monday, but it had been Kate Cameron, the woman in love, who had utilized the capabilities of her alter ego had to get what she wanted. But now, when she had reached what she had desired, Catherine Cameron the CIA agent returned and made it impossible for Kate to just enjoy it.

"What are you doing in Beirut?" she asked.

"Work, as always." Niko answered. "I'm a diplomat, do you remember?"

"I do remember your job! But what brings you to Beirut?"

"Talks with the Lebanese, nothing special, just diplomacy." Niko didn't really answer her question. "What brings you to Beirut?" he asked, and he stressed both 'you' and 'Beirut' as if couldn't believe that she had ever before left New York.

"Work, as always." Kate answered. "I'm a Pan Am stewardess, do you remember?"

"I do remember one Pan Am stewardess I once shot pool with in London, but I may be a little bit amnesic about her. Was that you?"

Niko teasingly smiled at her, and Kate answered it with a smile of her own. Then she let her head sink back on his chest and fell silent. The last time Kate had lied to Niko, she had done so because Richard had ordered her to lie to him. But now, she had disobeyed Richard's orders, she was acting on her own, and she was still lying to Niko. She was habitually lying to nearly everyone she met, she had repeatedly lied to Laura, and now, after all what had happened, after all the damage lying had done to their relationship, she was still lying to Niko, even in this moment of absolute intimacy. What had her second career done to her? Was she even capable of being honest with anyone any longer?

But Niko hadn't been honest with her either. 'Nothing special, just diplomacy' he had said. He either was lying to her, or he really considered his work to be 'nothing special'. But the Niko Lonza Kate knew wouldn't have ever called supporting terrorists 'just diplomacy'. The Niko Lonza she remembered had been an advocate of liberty and peacefulness, and he had always been vocal and frank about it. Kate remembered a Niko Lonza who admired Martin Luther King and who had dreamt of freedom and happiness for the Yugoslavian people, and for every people in the world. She couldn't possibly imagine this Niko Lonza she had known to accept talking with terrorists as the right thing to do.

"Do you still work for the CIA?" Niko's question came out of the blue, without any warning.

"Kiss me!" Kate demanded instead of an answer, and he did. The kiss was deep and long. Kate remembered being kissed by Niko exactly like this many times before. The kiss brought her back to the happiest time she and Niko had experienced. It had been the time after their flight to Monte Carlo, and before Richard had told Kate to report on Niko. It had been only a few weeks, but it had been a time in which there had absolutely no reason for Kate to lie to Niko. She had been honest with him, and so had been her love for him. Kate could feel all that in this kiss. The kiss was honest and true.

"I had two supervisors." Kate finally commenced after the kiss. Her head returned to Niko's chest, and she didn't continue until she was no longer directly facing him. "One of them turned out to be working for the enemy. He nearly killed my other supervisor and took me hostage to escape. And when all that was over, they made me choose between being a Pan Am stewardess and becoming a professional agent. But after seeing my wounded supervisor bleeding at my couch, and after finding myself held at gunpoint by my other supervisor, I had no intent to accept their offer."

"And so you still work as a stewardess."

Kate didn't say anything, she didn't nod, she didn't confirmed Niko's conclusion in any way. Technically, she hadn't told a lie, it had all happened exactly as she had reported it. But if she accepted this argumentation, then she hadn't told a lie when she had claimed that her work as a Pan Am stewardess had brought her to Beirut either. If she accepted this story to be the truth, then she was lying to herself.

"Do you still send reports to the CIA?" Kate asked. She hadn't addressed this issue before, purposely so, but after Niko's question, she had no intent to dance around it any longer.

"In contrast to you, I've never had a choice." Niko said. "If there was a choice at all, I had to choose between either staying a diplomat and reporting to your agency, or losing everything I had in my life, and maybe even my life itself. I've always wanted to be a diplomat, just like you've always wanted to be a stewardess. After I had met your then-supervisor, the only chance to continue to be a diplomat was becoming a spy."

"And so you still work as a diplomat."

This time, it was Niko who didn't confirm what Kate had seemingly concluded. He didn't speak a word, and neither did Kate. Everything had been said – everything.

"I have to return to my hotel." Kate raised from Niko's strong body and stood up to pick up her clothes. "The morning flight to Paris will departure at 8 o'clock, and the flight crew has to be at the airport at least two hours earlier."

Niko watched Kate getting dressed in silence. All the time, she didn't look at him. She was afraid of what emotions she would see on his face. He had lied to her, and Kate didn't want to see how he looked when he was lying. She didn't want her memories of Niko to contain any lying at all. She had to leave now, and she knew that she had to never again meet him. She wanted to treasure the sex of this night forever, not only because it had been good and she had really enjoyed it, but more importantly because it had been honest. And if Kate tried really hard, she might be able forget what had come after it.

"Will we see each other again?"

Niko's question came at the same moment in which Kate's hand touched the doorknob. She paused, but she didn't turn around. She stared at the door in front of her face, and when she answered, she was glad she couldn't see Niko.

"It's a small world, and some even claim it's as small as a village. They say that you'll meet new friends if you travel. But I've come to the conclusion that if you travel really a lot, you'll meet the same people over and over again. And we both do travel really a lot. After all, you're a diplomat, and I'm a stewardess, do you remember?"


	5. 1965

_Pan Am – "We'll Always Have Beirut"_

**1965**

_v1.0.1 (June 24, 2013)_

"So he won't be with us tonight, too?" Kate asked. She had known in advance that Sanjeev would spend New Year's with his wife, but now she asked Maggie about another person that might have been invited.

"No, he is in Hong Kong, he flew there this morning. He won't be back before the day after tomorrow."

Maggie threw up her arm in the air once more, and this time a cab stopped – finally. It wasn't easy to get a cab on New Year's Eve. Now Maggie, Laura, and Kate rushed into the back of the car.

"You don't seem to be particularly disappointed." Kate continued, and Maggie shrugged while replying: "Why should I?"

"Well, I thought you would have liked to spend this evening with your boyfriend."

Maggie pulled a face at Kate: "George is not my boyfriend."

"Oh, he isn't?" Kate sneered at Maggie and turned to Laura: "Laura, what is your impression of Maggie and Broyles's relationship?" Kate waited for Laura to respond, but her younger sister seemed as if she hadn't listened to their conversation at all, so Kate added: "Didn't you tell me he was around at your apartment quite often lately?"

"Who is in my apartment often?" was Laura's confused answer. But before Kate could even bring her up to the conversation, Laura focused and responded:

"Oh, you are talking about Captain Broyles. Well, yes, every time I come home, he is there." Laura raised her eyebrows and reproachfully looked at Maggie. Kate triumphantly sent a similar look of reproach to Maggie. The purser sighed and raised her palms in a gesture of capitulation.

"So what? Yes, we regularly spend some time together. But he is not my 'boyfriend'!"

"That depends of what exactly you two do when you spend your time together. Laura?"

Laura blushed at the allegation included in her sister's question and turned to the window. Now Maggie laughed cheerfully.

"Oh, Laura, you are my roommate for more than one and a half year, I would have thought the times of blushing were over. And to you:" – Maggie turned back to Kate – "I will not go into any details, but I will tell you this: I don't let my options be limited by labels like 'acquaintance', 'friend', or 'boyfriend'."

"Well, then why do you insist on dismissing 'boyfriend' as the correct label?" Kate tauntingly asked.

"How could you even judge the correctness of any label in this case? I don't think you've ever been in the same room with me and George at the same time. All you have is hearsay!"

Maggie seemed really upset, but Kate was only halfheartedly engaged in what she considered nothing more than a playful banter. Maggie was right, Kate had never really seen her and Broyles together, and all she knew about the couple she knew from Laura. But then, Kate's sister was Maggie's roommate, and she was most probably the best source of information about Maggie's love life Kate could wish for. And being together with her sister and Maggie at this evening was the best way to celebrate New Year's Eve Kate could wish for.

The cab finally reached their destination, and Maggie, Laura, and Kate got out. They could see Times Square from here, and although it was relatively early, the streets were swarming with people. They entered the building and took the elevator, up to Ted's apartment. Kate and Maggie were still discussing Broyles:

"I would have expected you to have adopted a little bit more of mental flexibility after living in Paris for quite some time now. Do your French friends even care for the difference between a 'boyfriend' and an 'acquaintance' at all?" Maggie said, and when she had finished this sentence, she knocked, and the door opened immediately.

"Welcome, my friends, I'm so glad to see the three of you. Come in!"

Amanda Vanderway cheerfully smiled at her guests, and Kate was the first to step in.

"Amanda, thank you for your invitation. I'm delighted to finally meet you again! I'm so sorry I couldn't be at your wedding, and at all the other times you invited me in the past." she said and greeted the hostess of the night with two kisses on her cheeks. It actually was only the second time she and Amanda met each other, since this one day shortly after she and Ted had announced their engagement. Then Kate saw Ted standing in the living room and went on to greet her former First Officer.

"Ted!" she exclaimed. "You've done a pretty good job of hiding your family from me! I can't believe this is actually the first time I meet you and Amanda since she has become your wife!"

"You accuse me of hiding my family? You're the one who left the continent!" Ted happily smiled at his old friend. "Do you already miss us? And by 'us', I mean especially your charming, handsome First Officer."

"I really miss you." Kate answered sincerely, only to smirkingly add: "And by 'you', I mean the crew of the _Clipper Majestic_ minus its self-important First Officer."

Kate laughed, and Ted joined in after a brief moment of insecurity about her jest.

"But I'm afraid you're going to accuse me of hiding my family right again: Teddy Junior is at my parent's house for the night."

"That's a shame!" Kate said. "And you haven't even sent me a picture of him! I don't even know if I have to feel sorry for him for inheriting your looks."

"Don't worry, Teddy Junior is a lucky boy, he's as beautiful as his mother." Maggie interjected when she stepped closer to the two of them.

"And here she is, my favorite purser." Ted welcomed the second stewardess at his apartment. "Tell me again, why was I so lucky when Kate, Dean, and Colette left, but you of all people stuck with me?"

"Because with you at your honeymooner's high and without Dean sitting next to you, you needed me to ground you so that you didn't develop delusions of grandeur." Maggie explained her view of what had happened in the first weeks of the year that was going to end on this night. "Besides, you really should thank me. I was the one who tipped the scale when the _Clipper Majestic_ lost three of its seven crew members, even though it was only temporary for two of them. If yet another of us had left, they would have disbanded our crew and reassigned all of us to different planes."

"Who would have ever thought that one day you would save our crew! I've always thought it was my job to save your career…"

"When have you ever saved my career?" Maggie challengingly asked Ted after he had claimed just that.

"I can't even count how often I did!" Ted exaggeratedly boasted. "The one time you stabbed a passenger and I calmed him down? The one time we all covered your ass when you skipped a flight just to give President Kennedy some cigars – my cigars, may I remind you! Or the one time you and Liz got wasted in Tehran and Laura and I had to…"

"Speaking of Liz…" Kate cut in on Ted, saving Maggie from his potentially endless list. "Have I already told you that I've met her? She came to Paris just one week after your Tehran flight in August. She was full of praise for you."

"That sounds as if she was still drunk…" Ted taunted.

"Come on, Ted, don't be unfair." Kate placed her left hand on Maggie's shoulder as an expression of her sympathy. "Laura told me about the good work you're doing with all the new girls. And Liz was really thankful for her opportunity to learn from such an experienced stewardess."

Kate smiled at Maggie, and she was glad to see that her friend was smiling at her. Kate had teased Maggie about Broyles, but now she was sure that Maggie hadn't taken it too seriously. With her left hand still resting on Maggie's shoulder, she became aware of the big bottle of champagne she had carried in her right hand since she had left Maggie and Laura's apartment earlier this evening. She looked for Amanda and saw her and Laura still in the hall.

"Amanda, I'm sorry, I've totally forgotten to give you this." She raised her present for the hostess. "Original champagne from the river Marne, personally imported to the United States."

"Catherine Cameron, are you telling me you are handing out smuggled goods as a gift?! I hope you don't expect me to become your accomplice in this crime by consuming this contraband!"

Maggie theatrically played the indignant, but Kate just threw a playfully sneering look at her. Obviously, this was fun for both of them.

"And there we are, back discussing the best term to describe your relationship to Broyles…"

The smiled disappeared from Maggie's face. She hastily grabbed Kate's arm and pulled her out on the balcony. Kate was totally taken by surprise, she couldn't even resist Maggie's determination. When they both stood on the balcony, Maggie hissed at Kate:

"What do you mean by that?"

Kate looked at Maggie, and she was even more surprised when she was able to clearly see the other woman's face now. Maggie was no longer smiling at her, but her facial expression was tense and serious.

"I was just kidding, why are you so upset…?" Kate whispered, without even knowing why she wasn't speaking in a normal voice.

"You know very well what upset me." Maggie responded without answering anything. "How do you know about me and George?"

"Laura told me." Kate was still confused. "You didn't really hide your relationship from her. But we've already discussed this…"

"I don't talk about my relationship with George, I'm referring to your allusion to George's smuggling!"

"I found out about it when we were in Moscow. He didn't seem to be too concerned when I walked in on one of his deals." Kate was so surprised about in which direction this conversation was going that she had answered Maggie's question without any hesitation. But then she came up with an question on her own: "But how do you know about it? You haven't been with us to Moscow."

Maggie's face changed once again. She seemed still shocked, but she was no longer upset, rather painfully uncomfortable with Kate's question.

"Wait!" Kate finally realized what had caused Maggie's sudden wild mood swing. "You aren't upset because I know about Broyles being a smuggler, you got upset when I referred to you as his accomplice… Oh my god, don't tell me I was right with this! I was just kidding!"

Maggie didn't say a word, but her face was telling Kate all she needed to know.

"Since when…?"

"For a little over one year." Maggie whispered. She looked crestfallen. "I don't even do it for the money… It's just… fun."

"Fun?!"

Kate was at least as shocked as Maggie looked. She had just learnt that her best friend for years was a notorious criminal, and all she had to offer as an explanation was that it was 'fun'? But before Kate could even start getting upset about this side of Maggie, she paused for a moment when she became aware of a fact about her own personal life story. She hadn't got paid for working for the CIA before she had entered training at Langley. She hadn't gotten into what she was doing for the money, exactly as Maggie had said about herself. Now, serving your country on the front line of an intelligence war was certainly a different matter than smuggling! But if Kate was honest with herself, Maggie's reasons were seemingly not so different from her own.

"You are going to turn us in, you have to." Maggie stated as a fact, and even so there was a last rest of hope in her voice, it wasn't much.

Kate instantly felt sorry for her. And although she knew that what Maggie had confessed to her was a crime, and that there really was no way to justify or excuse this crime, she also knew that she could impossibly turn against her old friend. She hadn't reported Broyles to the police when she had learnt about him, then how could she possibly do this to Maggie! Another thought crossed her mind: When she had mentioned Broyles in her 'conversation' with Herbert while Richard had been listening, she had basically revealed Broyles to both the German and the American authorities. Back then, she had been only mildly concerned about it. Now, she was really glad that Herbert and Richard had told her that crime wasn't their business. Because if they had taken any actions because of Kate's declaration, Kate would have been unknowingly responsible for any prosecution Maggie would have had to face by now!

Luckily, Kate was in the same business as Herbert and Richard.

"I won't do that." she whispered, and she placed her hand on Maggie's shoulder again, to emphasize her sympathy just like she had done before. "Don't be afraid, I'm not going to report you, or Broyles. I'm your friend, your secret is safe with me."

Seeing the feeling of relief entering Maggie's face was at least as easing to Kate. This conversation had been so brief, this revelation so unexpected, Kate for sure had to think about what all that meant later. But now, with the happy mood everybody was in on this evening, she didn't want to think about it any longer. Last New Year's Eve had ended in the nervous breakdown of Laura, and Kate really didn't want this evening to end in a similar one of Maggie.

"I won't tell anybody about Broyles and your little side business." Kate confirmed again. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop teasing you about him. You've already confessed one aspect of your relationship to me, I won't stop until I make you confess about the other aspect of it, too!"

Kate smiled, and she hoped that Maggie would understand that she was joking around to definitely set the seal on their shared secret. For a second, Maggie's face didn't change, but then the insecurity and fear faded away and a weak smile appeared. Kate petted Maggie's arm once more, and then she directed her back to the door, returning inside the apartment. Amanda, Ted, and Laura were already waiting for them.

"So, have you two reached a conclusion in your dispute?" Kate's sister asked.

"Well, yes, we have." Kate answered. "Let's just say I will never again mistake Broyles for Maggie's 'boyfriend'."

"Wait, what?" Ted intervened and stared at Maggie. "Captain Broyles is your boyfriend?"

"No, he is not!" Maggie insisted. "Didn't you listen to what Kate just said? She just misunderstood some rumors that reached her in Paris."

Before Ted could ask further questions about what kind of rumors Maggie was talking about, his wife changed the topic of the conversation right on cue:

"Oh Kate, how is live in Paris so far? Ted has told me about you being in Paris, but I'm afraid I still haven't understood exactly what you are doing there."

"Oh, I'm Pan Am's standby stewardess for all flights from and in Europe. Whenever a stewardess is not available for a flight, I step in and fill her place." Kate explained. By now, she had told her cover story for so many times, she didn't even have to think about it anymore. And in the end, most of what she was telling her friends really was the truth. "In some way, it is quite exhausting, because you'll never know when you will be needed and where you will have to go, but in another way, it is also very enjoyable. I can see all of Europe, I meet all the pilots and stewardesses of Pan Am, and in between the flights, I have a lot of free time. The only thing I really miss is having a crew, working with friends like you are."

Kate smiled, and Maggie, Laura, and Ted smiled back at her.

"And you had to complete a special training for this position? Ted told me that you have been away for half a year."

"Well…" Kate commenced, but before she could explain her six months of absence, someone knocked on the door. Amanda went to open the door for the last two guest they were expecting. Colette and Dean stepped in, and Amanda received a cordial French greeting. When Colette saw Kate, she exclaimed:

"_Salut ma belle! Ca fait un bail déjà que nous ne nous sommes pas vus. Comment ça se passe pour toi à Paris?_"

And before Ted and Dean knew what was happening, the five women had a cheerful chat in French, while the two men, as the only persons in the room who were not fluent in French, had to stand at the sidelines and watch in amused silence.

– – – –

Four hours later, it was 1965. They all had watched the Times Square ball drop from the balcony, and now they were back in the cozy living room.

Colette and Dean stood at the window watching the skyline of New York, joined in a loving embrace, and next to them stood Amanda and Ted. The love radiating from the two couples filled the whole room. Kate was sitting on the couch, together with Laura and Maggie. It had been a wonderful evening, with a lot of laughing, and a lot of champagne. But after the new year had begun, the two couples had fallen silent, and Kate, Laura, and even Maggie had gotten quiet, too. They all were thinking about what the past year had given them, and what the new year would bring.

Kate enjoyed sitting close to her sister and her best friend, who she both had seen for so little time this year. Kate wondered whether she would have found out about Maggie's smuggling if she had spent the year with her. She still couldn't really believe it. Kate knew Maggie for so many years, and she had been her crewmate for so long, she still considered her to be one of her closest friends, and she had thought she knew her. Obviously, she didn't. But then, would Maggie be able to believe it if she told her that she was a spy?

As it turned out, the past year had been a year of lying. Kate had lied to all her friends about her life, and as she had found out, Maggie had lied to them, too. Kate couldn't imagine that her sister Laura lied to her, or that Colette, Dean, or Ted did. Kate looked at the two couples standing in front of her, and she felt that their love was true and honest. Just as true and honest as her love to Niko had been. And still, when they both had met in Beirut, they had lied to each other.

"You were right, Kate." Maggie whispered so that only Kate and Laura could hear her. At first, Kate didn't know about what she was talking. For several seconds, nobody said a word, then Maggie continued: "You were right, Kate, he is my boyfriend."

Once again, no one spoke, and Kate realized that Maggie really had taken their banter at least a little bit serious.

"But he is in Hong Kong, and I am here, on the other side of the world. He should be here with me, or I should be there with him. But we should not be apart in this night."

Maggie looked at her glass of champagne, pondering for a moment, and then she drank the last sip from it. With a sudden movement, she jumped up from the couch.

"It is time to get drunk. Most probably, he already is." she exclaimed.

"Hong Kong is 13 hours ahead of New York. You know that, you are a stewardess." Laura interjected.

"Well, then he is probably already sober again by now. Just one more good reason to drink – and don't anyone of you question my logic!"

All of her friends were looking at Maggie now. She put her glass on the coffee table and looked at the hosting couple.

"Amanda, Ted, it has been a wonderful evening, thank you very much for your hospitality. But now I will leave you, because this night might get a little bit ugly from here on. Well, to be honest, I will be disappointed if it won't."

"I'm with you." Kate emptied her glass and joined Maggie. In vino veritas, they said, and even if the alcohol couldn't make all the lying undone, it could maybe make her forget it. "It's my last night in New York before I return to France, and it has been months since the last time we had some hard drinks together. And we even have a reason to get drunk this time!"

Kate smiled at Amanda and Ted, nodding to express her gratefulness for the evening. Then she looked over to Colette and Dean.

"How about you two? One drink for the road before you go home…"

"Well, I guess I can't decline one drink with my fellow _Parisienne_."

While Colette and Dean thanked Amanda and Ted for the party, Kate turned to her younger sister. Before she could even ask, Laura shook her head.

"You know that my share of the champagne has already been enough for me. I better go home. But don't worry, just have a great night! We will see again tomorrow."

Kate and Laura both nodded in approval of her sister's plans, and then Kate followed Maggie who was already in her coat. Kate, Maggie, Colette, and Dean said goodbye to Amanda and Ted and then left the apartment. At first, the three stewardesses were leading the way, but as soon as they were in the elevator, Colette returned to her boyfriend's side, and when the four of them stood at the street, they split up into two couples.

"I'm sorry, Maggie," Colette said, "but I'm afraid I've given my promise a little bit overhasty. I think Dean and I will go home now."

"Don't worry, Kate and I will be fine." Maggie smiled at her and then turned to her captain: "Don't take this personal, Dean, but I think I'm more in the mood for a girls' night, anyway."

From this point on, Kate's memories of this night were patchy. She remembered that Maggie had taken her to a little club in the Village, and that seemingly everyone they met there knew Maggie for years. Kate had spent nights drinking with Maggie before, and she had known what to expect when Maggie had warned her that she was going to get seriously drunk. What she hadn't expected was that there would be only so few talking between them. Sure, they were joking and laughing, and they were having a good time. But after their discussion on the balcony, Kate had expected this issue to come up again. As it seemed, Maggie wanted to forget certain things, just like Kate.

"Remember when we returned from the balcony?" was the closest Maggie was willing to come back to this, but she still wasn't going to talk about what had happened out there. Instead, she wanted to talk about what had come after it: "I was really surprised to see Laura, Ted, and Amanda together and not find at least one of them in tears. Laura did really well tonight."

"What do you mean by this?" Kate asked.

"Didn't Laura tell you about what happened the last time she and Amanda met back in August?"

Kate shook her head. "I didn't even know that they hadn't seen for such a long time."

"Well, and for a good reason." Maggie said. "Think of how last New Year's Eve ended, then you know how I expected this one to end as well."

"Is it still because of Ted?"

Kate remembered that exactly one year ago, her sister had had a nervous breakdown at Ted's party after he had told her that Amanda was pregnant. After it, Kate had done her best to console Laura, but it had been the time when she had made the decision to become a full-time CIA agent, and she had had to leave her just some days after that night. Since then, Laura had never again talked about Ted, and Kate had thought that she was over him.

"Poor Laura really had a hard time after this." Maggie confirmed. "When we went to see Teddy Junior for the first time, and it ended exactly the same way, I got really worried about her. I mean, more than eight months had passed, and she was still attached to him. I wouldn't consider this a healthy way of dealing with Ted's rejection! But now I've come to think that this may have been the point at which she finally realized that it was over. She was seriously depressed for a couple of days, but then her mood got fundamentally better, and so did her relationship with Ted. They're kind of friends now, and who knows, maybe she and Amanda will be friends at one day, too!"

"I had no idea that Laura took it so badly."

"How should you, you weren't there." Maggie said.

Yes, she hadn't been there. It was the first time that Kate learnt that she hadn't been there for her sister in what appeared to be the hardest time of her life. If Maggie was telling the truth, Laura had suffered from the sudden end of her short affair with Ted even far longer than she had after leaving Greg. Kate instantly felt bad for not having been there with her sister to help her to get through this hard time. All the time, she had been feeling bad for lying to Laura, but now Kate realized that she had hurt her sister far more than that by not being there for her. She not only was a horribly person, she also was a horrible sister.

And it hurt her to hear that Laura had suffered for so long. Maggie had called it not healthy to mourn for such a long time, and she was probably right. Kate and all of Laura's friends had first learnt of her love for Ted at the very same night their relationship had ended, and considering this, eight months seemed a little bit disproportionate. Kate wondered if Laura would have gotten over Ted faster if she had been with her. When a love ended, it was good to have friends who were there for you, and it was even better if one of this friends was your sister.

Even though she didn't want to, Kate couldn't help but think of how she had felt when she and Niko had had to let each other go. Kate hadn't told Laura much about her and Niko, and she obviously hadn't been able to tell her the reasons for their 'breakup', if this even was the right word. But still, Laura had been there for her, and Kate had needed her consolation. It had felt good to have her sister by her side, even if it had meant having to lie to her. Kate felt bad for not having made Laura feel just as good when she had needed solace.

Kate knew too little about what exactly had happened between Laura and Ted to understand how she had felt, and that was just another aspect she felt sorry about. Kate couldn't imagine how hard it had been for Laura to see and work with Ted every day after their own breakup. At this point, she couldn't relate to her sister's situation, coming from her own experience with Niko. When she and Niko had parted at the Worldport – Kate starting to a flight around the world, Niko returning to Yugoslavia – she hadn't expected to see him again anytime soon, she hadn't really expected to see him ever again.

But she had met him again. A quarter of the year later, Kate still wasn't sure whether this had been a good thing, or rather the opposite. It had been great to see him again, to talk to him again. She had heard his voice, she had felt his kisses on her lips, and she had felt his hands on her body, and she had loved it. She had missed Niko from the moment she had left him at the Worldport, and it had hurt more than she had though she could bear. But now, it seemed as if before this one night, she hadn't even known how much she really had missed Niko, how much she really had needed him. Even three months later, Kate could still remember the feeling of lying in his strong arms, and when she looked back at 1964, it even may have been the best moment of the whole year for her.

But that night hadn't ended with this moment, and even though Kate had tried to forget, three months later she could still feel the pain of being lied to by Niko. And she still felt the pain of lying to him. The time that had passed since then hadn't made it easier, it only had made her doubt that there was any love left between her and Niko. Kate hadn't told Richard about this night, and she wasn't going to tell him now or at any point in the future. One reason was that telling him about how she had disobeyed his direct orders would hurt her career, and it would destroy the fragile relationship of trust between Richard and her. The second reason was that Kate wanted to protect her love to Niko from Richard, that she didn't want to lose control over it to the agency again. But then, was there still anything left to protect?

Kate, the woman in love with Niko, wanted to preserve the love she had experienced at this night, and she felt if she talked to Richard about it, she would hand it over to the agency and thereby destroy any last remains of it that still existed. Catherine Cameron, the CIA agent, knew that it was her duty to report her contact with Niko Lonza, because what she had learnt from her conversation with him was that he really was what Richard and her superiors suspected him to be: an enemy agent.

– – – –

_Do you want to know how Laura experienced the last night of 1964? Find out by reading the second chapter of Laura's story: "__More Love Than Two Can Handle_"! (chapter URL: /s/9208051/2)


	6. Spies on a Plane

_Pan Am – "We'll Always Have Beirut"_

**Spies on a Plane  
**

_v1.0.1 (June 25, 2013)_

Day two of what was going to be a three-day round trip: The day before, Kate had been assigned to a flight from Paris to Casablanca, where she and her crew had spent the night. The stewardess she was filling in for had been grounded in Paris by the French authorities because she hadn't been able to produce a valid vaccination certificate, and Kate could very well remember the one time exactly the same had happened to herself. She was absolutely sure that this assignment had been set up by the agency, but until now, she hadn't been contacted by them.

But Kate's trip would still last for two more days before she would return to Paris, and her upcoming destinations sounded promising. Today, her flight would bring her to Cairo. Not only was the city a fascinating metropolis Kate had always enjoyed visiting, it also was the capital of Nasser's Egypt, and to some extend the capital of the whole Arab League. Kate could very well imagine that there was some work waiting for her in Cairo. But her stay in Egypt was scheduled to be nothing more than a two-hour stopover, and Kate wasn't sure that this was enough to complete any complex mission.

From Cairo, Kate's flight would go on to Vienna, and chances were good that she would receive her task there. Not only was she going to spend the night in Vienna before returning to Paris on the next day, the city also was one of the most important hotspots of the Cold War. Austria was neutral, the most western of all the nonaligned countries, and its capital was one of the four host cities of the United Nations, and location of the OPEC's headquarters, to name only two of the many important international organizations that were present. Diplomats from every single country of the world met in Vienna, and so did spies from both blocks and every country that considered itself part of neither of them.

Just like at many flights before, Kate had found her crew to be very kind and friendly towards her. When Kate had taken up her job as standby stewardess, she had been afraid that having to integrate into a new crew at every flight would be hard. But in the last eight months, she had been readily welcomed at every plane, and just as she had hoped for, she had made many new friends. Her three newest friends were Bernice, Rebecca, and Sophie, the cabin crew of the _Clipper Celestial Challenger_, and in this moment, the four of them were standing lined-up to welcome their passengers aboard. Pan Am laid special emphasis on this welcoming ritual, and the four stewardesses displayed their warmest smile.

Kate was confident that neither one of the passengers nor one of her three colleagues noticed the subtle, barely distinguishable change in her smile when she recognized the man at the end of the line. She was certainly taken by surprise, but she was also professional, and both her Pan Am training and her CIA training helped her to hide it.

"Welcome aboard _Clipper Celestial Challenger_!" she greeted the last passenger who passed the parade of stewardesses.

"'Celestial Challenger'" Richard Parks repeated. "What a proud name."

"Just as proud as Pan Am is to fly you to your destination." Kate answered, while Rebecca, her purser for the flight, was already signaling the boarding to be completed. "Are you going to visit Cairo for business or pleasure?"

"Neither, I'm going to Vienna." he answered, and added: "I'm going there for business, though."

"In that case, I hope you'll enjoy your day with Pan Am. We're scheduled to arrive in Vienna at twenty hundred hours local time, that's nineteen hundred hours Casablanca time."

Kate still smiled professionally, and Richard answered with a more relaxed smile on his own.

"Good thing I've served in the Air Force, otherwise I wouldn't have understood a single world of your aviator's jargon."

Richard stepped out of the galley, and Kate watched him as he seated himself in the first class compartment.

"Not bad." When Kate turned around she found Rebecca standing directly behind her. "A former Air Force officer, maybe even a pilot. I guess I already know with whom you're going to spend the evening." Rebecca silently laughed at Kate. "'Twenty hundred hours local time', really?"

"Well, I think it made him feel like home, and that's our job, isn't it? Mind if I take care of the first class today?"

Kate confidently smiled at her purser, and when Rebecca knowingly smiled and then nodded in agreement, she thanked her with a satisfied nod and then hurried to help Bernice and Sophie with the last pre-takeoff preparations. Ten minutes later, the plane was in the air and on its way to Egypt. All the minor tasks at hand were routine to Kate, and her mind was free to think about Richard's presence and what it might signify. Why was he here, in the field? He normally didn't personally brief her, at least not since she had left New York. The one time he had visited her in Paris, he hadn't been for a briefing, as he had emphatically stressed. And he had never been directly involved in a mission, apart from Munich, which hadn't been a mission at all, but rather a test.

This had to be an extraordinarily important mission – or could it be yet another test? Kate didn't consider this to be very likely. More than eight months had passed since her graduation from CIA training, and she had already proven her capabilities as an agent numerous times. Kate remembered what Richard had told her after her first encounter with Herbert, when they had been on their way from Pullach to Riem airport. He had mentioned the possibility of becoming a case officer, and it would made sense that Kate's own case officer would personally mentor her on this career move.

Or had he found out about Kate's private trip to Beirut? The last time he had visited her, it had been because he had found out about her contacting Herbert. Kate got nervous when she thought about what Richard was going to tell her if he really had found out it. But then, he wouldn't have arranged this whole setup just to tell her that he knew about her disobeying his orders. He wouldn't fire her on a plane, would he?

Kate couldn't wait any longer, she had to find out. The other stewardesses were already aware of her special interest in this particular passenger, and so Kate didn't hesitate to talk to him again. Little did they know what Kate really wanted to achieve by devoting special attention to the handsome man who had served in the Air Force.

"So, you said you had served in the Air Force." Kate had stepped close to Richard, who was occupying a window seat in the last row of the first class compartment. The seat next to him was unoccupied, and nobody sat close to him. "That's good to know, in case our pilots need a little help in the cockpit."

"I'm afraid I wouldn't do any good." Richard answered. "I've been an airman, but I've never risen beyond this rank. I hope you don't consider me a show-off for not making this clear earlier."

"Well, I think I can forgive you. After all, I'm just a lowly stewardess who tried to impress you with my 'aviator's jargon'."

Kate looked down the aisle, watching out for the other stewardesses, and then she quickly sat down next to Richard.

"There's business waiting for you in Vienna?" she asked, not really whispering, but low enough so that nobody could overhear their conversation.

"For me, yes, it is. Or rather, it will be." Richard answered in an equally low voice. "You'll have already completed your task when we reach Vienna."

"You want me to help you on the plane?" Kate asked.

"Are you surprised?" Richard smiled. "You're a stewardess, aren't you?"

"So, what do you want me to do?" Kate really was surprised. "Serve drinks?"

"As a matter of fact, that's exactly what we want you to do." Richard enjoyed the look on Kate's face. "To be more precise, we want you to serve a drink to a particular passenger, and we want you to add a special ingredient."

Richard reached for the inside pocket of his jacket, and when his hand reemerged, it held a small glass ampulla that contained a clear liquid.

"Poison?" Kate asked. She stared at the vial, and she held her breath when she tried to somehow cope with what Richard was asking her to do.

"A narcotic drug." Richard said. "Flavorless, odorless, harmless – more or less. We don't want you to kill the target, we just want you to make him sleep for two or three hours."

Richard still held the tiny glass container, and Kate still stared at it. It wasn't poison, just a narcotic – at least that was what Richard had told her. Kate was relieved that he didn't want her to kill a person, so relieved that she didn't even think about whether drugging a person was something she was more comfortable with. Richard made a narrow movement with his hand, and Kate understood that he was waiting for her to take the ampulla. She took it and slipped it into her uniform pocket.

"The target is going to board the plane in Cairo." Richard began explaining. "You'll administer him the drug about twenty minutes before our arrival in Vienna, that way he'll be sleeping when we land. After the landing, you'll try to wake him up, and when he won't wake up – and he won't –, you'll call for some medics. The medics will take the target with them, but he won't arrive at the hospital. At this point, your job is done, and my 'business' in Vienna begins."

Kate nodded. This plan sounded realizable, it shouldn't be too hard to slip the drug into the target's drink. The only thing Richard still needed to tell her was who the target was.

"I guess you can give me the name of the target." Kate confirmed her approval of the plan. Richard looked at her, and for a second, he didn't say a word.

"It's Lonza." he finally said.

Kate stared at him in disbelieve. She just couldn't believe that Richard really had said the name she had seemingly heard. A confused smile appeared in her face, and she even exclaimed a short, dry laugh. Kate shook her head, but Richard's face didn't change in any way. He looked at her, calmly, as if he had expected her to react like this. Maybe he really had. After all, he knew how she felt for Niko. He knew that she couldn't possibly do this to Niko!

"You want me to poison Niko?!"

"First of all, calm down and don't forget to flirt with me." Richard said. Kate's voice had been louder than before, and Richard put on an extra bright smile in case somebody was watching them. To Kate, it felt as if he was mocking her. "Secondly, I've already told you that nobody wants you to poison anybody. He'll just sleep for some hours. And thirdly, yes, we want you to do it, because you're the only stewardess on our payroll. We want Lonza, and we need you to get him."

"You want me to poison Niko?!" Kate repeated, ignoring what Richard had told her. But at least she was whispering again. "What do you want from him?"

"Since we found out about Lonza lying to us – since you made us aware of it – there has been a shift in our priorities." Richard explained calmly, and to Kate he seemed painfully calm. "In Belgrade, he is no longer of any use for us. As it seems, he has never been. But he knows things we want to know. He still has knowledge about the Yugoslavian government's strategies, and their internal matters. Even more importantly, he also had contact to the PLO and knows about their organization, their plans, and to what extent the Yugos are cooperation with them. We have absolutely no access to any relevant information about the Palestinians, and we need Lonza to find out what they're up to."

"And to get this information you want to kidnap Niko? And you want me to help you?"

After the first shock, Kate was getting upset now, and she also was getting louder again.

"He won't tell us anything of interest in his 'reports', that's for sure." Richard tried to explain. "We have to talk to him in person to convince him… to be a little bit more cooperative. And again, yes, we want you to help us, and you will help us."

"What makes you so sure about this?" Kate hissed. She wanted to stand up and leave Richard, but he laid his hand on her shoulder and held her down.

"You will help us, you will obey me orders, because otherwise I'll have to file a report on you. Not only on this refusal to obey orders, but also on your visit to Beirut." Richard paused for a moment, to wait for Kate to react on the last part of his sentence. "When our man in Beirut didn't file any report on Lonza, his case officer contacted him about it, and when your name came up, he contacted me, because I'm your case officer. I'm your supervisor."

Kate was shocked, but then, she had waited for Richard to confront her about this for several months. She was surprised that he hadn't done earlier. Any other moment would have been better than this.

"I told him that you were acting on my orders." Richard continued. "I even was able to assume responsibility for the whole Lonza case, arguing that you and me, we both have a special connection to him."

Richard paused again, but this time, it seemed to Kate that he wasn't waiting for her reaction to anything he had said, but that he himself needed a moment to understand what this meant.

"I've covered up for all your insubordinations and violations of the rules. I've done so not only because I'm your friend, and not only because you've saved my life, I've covered up for you because I've always trusted you to do the right thing when it matters. If you don't follow my orders now, this will seriously damage my standing in the agency, it will be the end of your career as an agent, and it will be the end of my trust in you."

– – – –

"In my whole time as a stewardess, I've never before had a passenger who requested a downgrade from first to economy." Rebecca buckled her seatbelt to prepare for takeoff, and then she turned back to Kate who was seated on her right side. "Are you going to follow your pilot?"

"He is not 'my pilot', he's no pilot at all." Kate answered, referring to Richard. She paused for a moment, although she didn't need any time to make the decision. Someone already had decided for her. "I'll stay in first."

Rebecca looked at Kate, and she seemed to be almost pitying her.

"So, I take it you still have no date for your night in Vienna?"

"We aren't there yet." Kate answered. "Have you seen this Yugoslavian diplomat? He's mine!"

Kate smiled at her purser, and she tried to look confident and even content with her prospects for the flight. But she wasn't. When Niko had boarded the plane in Cairo, she hadn't had an opportunity to evade him. She had been standing in line with the other stewardesses, smiling at everyone who entered the plane, and so she had smiled at him. At least she had been prepared to see him. He, in contrast, had seemed to be as shocked as he had been in Beirut. Now he was sitting on his seat in first class, and Kate wasn't even sure whether he was waiting for her to come and talk to him, or whether he was expecting her to avoid any contact with him. But then, when she had left his hotel room in Beirut, it had been him who had asked if they would see each other again. And it had been Kate who had foreshadowed that they would meet again.

She wished it hadn't actually happened.

After the takeoff, Kate kept herself busy in the galley considerably longer than she had to, and her colleagues were already on their first tour when she entered the first class compartment. She asked each of the passengers for their wishes, and she noticed that Niko had left his seat and was sitting on his own in one of the booths. She skipped him and served all the other passengers first. Only when she knew that every other person she was responsible for had been taken care of, she finally joined Niko in his booth.

"Beirut, Cairo, Vienna… Diplomats really travel a lot." she opened the conversation. "I knew we would meet again."

"And diplomats travel even more when flight timetables are so messed up. There is no nonstop flight from Beirut to Belgrade today, so I had to take the detour via Cairo and Vienna to get to Belgrade. A whole day in the air just to get home." He looked at her, and Kate saw that he was no longer as shocked as he had been just minutes earlier. "I hoped we would meet again."

"That's unfortunate." Kate answered, and then she quickly clarified: "That there is no direct flight, I mean."

"Well, it isn't that unfortunate, for several reasons." he replied. Niko took a deep breath, and it seemed as if he was making a tough decision. "Do you have a minute or two?" he asked and pointed at the settee next to him.

Kate sat down, and for a short moment, it flickered through their mind what Rebecca and the others thought of her when they saw her sitting next to this handsome passenger. To them, it surely seemed as if the substitute stewardess was hitting on two men on this one flight, and they were probably wondering what she was doing all the time in Paris. Even in this situation, an amused smile lit up Kate's face. Without knowing her thoughts, Niko smiled at her, too, and it seemed as if he had needed what he interpreted as a sign of Kate's friendliness to pluck up his courage.

"Kate, I think it may be a happy omen that we meet on this flight." he commenced. "I've taken on this detour via Vienna on purpose. I don't plan to go home to Belgrade from there. In fact, I don't plan to ever go home."

"What do you mean by that?" Kate asked. She was confused by Niko's words, and his facial expression was confusing her even more. He looked just like he had looked when they had parted at the Worldport, and just like then she could read his mind. Niko was very sad, but he still was determined to do what he thought he had to do.

"Since I returned to Yugoslavia, my life has been hell. Do you remember my cousin? I wasn't able to help him, he got put to death in past November. Tito also detained his whole family for several months, and my attempts to help them only made Tito's secret police suspicious of me."

Kate's view wandered from Niko's face to his right arm. She could painfully well remember how it looked beneath the suit he was wearing, and she also was very well aware that those scars she had seen in this night in Beirut were only the physical representation of the much more severe psychical scars Niko wasn't showing her.

"I'm still a diplomat," Niko continued, "but since then, I no longer serve my country in the way I've always been proud of. Tito forces me to act in his personal interest, and not in the interest of Yugoslavia, just like he subjugates the whole country under his will. I love my country, and I want to do my best for it. But when I'm traveling, I don't feel like the things I'm forced to do are actually doing any good for my country, and when I'm in Yugoslavia, I don't actually feel like I'm home."

Kate looked at Niko's face, and she could feel the pain he was suffering from. She had always known how much he loved Croatia, and she had loved him for his strong emotional bond to his home country that was far more than just nationalistic patriotism. Listening to him saying that he no longer felt at home in Yugoslavia was really painful for Kate. She watched as he took another deep breath.

"I won't fly to Belgrade from Vienna." Niko revealed the conclusions he had drawn. "I'm going to take the plane to Venice, I have friends in Trieste who will help me to disappear. And I do have to disappear, because Tito won't accept my defection, he won't let me go. He will send his henchmen after me, and they will try to hunt me down."

"I can help you!" When Kate had heard what Niko planed, her heart had skipped a beat. She still felt sorry for him, but no matter how hard the decision to leave his home country had been to him, the timing couldn't have possibly been better. "The CIA will help you to hide from Tito's men, they will bring you to the U.S., and you will be safe there."

"I can't ask the CIA for help." Niko resolutely stated.

"You don't have to, I can talk to my supervisor." Kate was almost euphoric. "He's on this plane right now, I can go and talk to him and…"

"Wait, your supervisor?" Niko interrupted her. "Do you still work for the CIA? And why is your supervisor on this plane?"

Kate saw genuine surprise in Niko's face, and she realized that he had really believed her when she had told him that she was no longer working for the CIA.

"He's here to talk to you." Kate answered Niko's second question, omitting her own status. "He wants you to come to America, and he will be happy to help you when he learns that you want to defect."

"He wants me to come to America?!" Niko looked shocked now. "Did you tell them that I was in Beirut?"

Although lying had become such an omnipresent part of her life, Kate still wasn't able to ban her emotions from her face. She couldn't hide her emotions from Niko, not in this situation, and so she didn't even try to lie to him.

"Oh Kate, what have you done?!" Niko seemed to have lost every last bit of hope. "But it's not your fault, you didn't know…" He looked Kate deep in the eye. "Tito's secret police found out about my deal with the CIA, I wasn't able to resist their interrogation. There are only two reasons I'm still alive and even traveling. The first is that Tito wants to profit from my good connections to the Egyptians and the Arabs, and the second reason is that I agreed to send false reports to your supervisors, that I agreed to lie to them. I haven't told the CIA about my work in Beirut, and if you told them about meeting me there, they now know that I was lying to them."

Niko hadn't told Kate anything new to her, but she understood that to him, this came as a shock.

"I can't ask the CIA for help." he repeated. "They don't want me to come to America to help me, they want to take me to task. They will hunt me just as determinedly as Tito's men."

Niko slumped down into the settee. His whole body told Kate what she could also read in his face: for him, there was no hope left. Looking at him was so painful for Kate that she could barely bear it. She didn't know what to say. Kate reached out, she wanted to lay her hand on his shoulder, wanted to give him solace. But Niko suddenly stood up before Kate's hand could reach him, and he left the privacy of the booth. Kate watched him as he stepped back to his seat and sat down there.

It took _Clipper Celestial Challenger_ four hours to get from Cairo to Vienna, and by now only one of them had passed. When Kate had asked Rebecca for first class, she had taken over responsibility not only for Richard and Niko, but for all of the passengers in it. They had paid for Pan Am's best service, and Kate gave them just that. The work kept both her hands and her mind occupied, and she was thankful for it. But even the most demanding work couldn't change the fact that every time Kate left the galley and entered the small cabin compartment she saw Niko sitting amongst her other passengers. And every time Kate saw Niko, she inevitably thought of Richard who was sitting only a few feet farther back behind the screen that divided the cabin.

And all the time she felt the tiny glass vial in her uniform's pocket that seemed to weigh several pounds. Richard had said that he trusted her to do the right thing when it mattered, but Kate didn't even know what the right thing was. Maybe it really was sedating Niko. If he was sleeping when they landed in Vienna, Richard and his men would take him with them, and ultimately they would take him to the U.S. There, in custody of American authorities, Niko would be save from Tito's killers. And if he explained them about being tortured by the Yugoslavian secret police, if he told them about his plans to defect, and if he was cooperative, they would understand. Kate could appeal to Richard, and she could help Niko.

Kate was well aware that the CIA wasn't exactly the Salvation Army. But no matter what their plans with Niko were, they could impossibly be worse than what Tito planned for him. And even if Niko was able to hide from Tito's men, would his life as a defector on the run be better than what the CIA could offer him? He had said that he had friends in Trieste, and he most probably also had friends in other places, but all they could give Niko was harbor for limited time and maybe help with finding the next hideout. No matter how well Niko hid, sooner or later Tito would find him, and then he needed protection. Protection only the CIA could offer.

Without protection by the CIA, it was only a matter of time until Niko's enemies – and if he refused cooperating with the CIA, the agency would be one of his enemies as well – would track him down, and Kate didn't want to imagine what they would do to him. But then, Niko would be free, at least until his flight came to the inevitable end. And it was his free choice to run from the CIA, just as he had chosen to defect from his home country. If Kate decided what she considered best for Niko and acted on her decision, she would rob him of his free choice – just as she had left him no free choice the last time when she had urged him to cooperate with the CIA. Kate owed Niko a free choice.

Kate had spent the whole flight thinking about Niko, what was best for him, and what she owed him. It wasn't until 30 minutes before the landing in Vienna that Kate began thinking about what was best for her, what she owed herself, and what she owed Richard. So many times, he not only had tolerated her insubordinations, he also still had always trusted her with new tasks, and he had supported her in her career. Without him, Kate would never had become an agent. And Kate understood that this decision was of a different quality than all the unauthorized decisions she had ever made before. I she disobeyed him now, she wouldn't be an agent for much longer.

Kate stared down at the glass of bourbon she had just poured, still pondering the consequences her decision would have for Niko and herself. She was alone in the galley, and she used the opportunity of being unwatched. She quickly pulled out the tiny glass ampulla and emptied it into the whiskey. The golden liquid didn't change its color. She put the glass on a tray and placed a decorative blossom next to it, just as Pan Am guidelines instructed. But before she left the galley, Kate took a deep breath. There had to be a better way. On the spur of the moment, Kate put a second glass on the tray and fixed another bourbon.

When Kate left the galley, she ignored Niko, just like she had done the whole time since he had ended their private conversation, and walked across the first class compartment. Back in economy, she found Richard sitting on a seat in one of the backmost rows. To reach him, she had to pass Rebecca, and she looked at Kate surprised and even a little bit upset. But Kate just smiled at her, as if she hadn't left her area of responsibility, and headed towards Richard. She couldn't see Rebecca's face when the purser realized whom Kate was visiting back here, but Kate could easily imagine that she was just ruining her reputation in a totally different way than she had pondered about for so long. Again, this thought amused her, and when she stepped next to Richard and bent down to him, she smiled.

"Niko wants to defect." she whispered to Richard. "There's no need to drug him, he'll come with you."

Richard looked at her. A short flicker of surprise flashed across his face, but then the smile he had welcomed her with reappeared. Kate knew this smile. It wasn't Richard's true smile, it was the smile Richard put on whenever he met her in public.

"Give it to him anyway." he whispered.

"But you don't need to sedate him, he…"

"Trust me, this way, it all will go off smoothly." Richard insisted, still insincerely smiling at her.

Kate nodded, and then she took one of the glasses from her tray and gave it Richard. She nodded again, confirming his order, and then she turned around. She passed Rebecca again, and she wondered what the other stewardess would think about her when she saw her going straight on to speak to Niko. This time, the thought wasn't able to amuse her, and there was no smile in Kate's face when she returned to the first class compartment and stepped next to Niko. Kate looked at him, and he looked at her, and the both looked each other deep in the eye for more than a second. Eventually, Kate put the tray with the bourbon on Niko's seat back table, but she took the blossom from it. With a gentle touch, she fixed the white and red flower to Niko's jacket, and then her right hand rested on his chest. She could feel his heart beating, just like she had felt it the last time her hand had rested on his strong chest.

"We'll always have Beirut."

Kate had whispered in an even lower voice than when she had talked to Richard. Niko seemed to understand, and he nodded.

"Miss, can you bring me a drink, too?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, we're going to land in Vienna in just a few minutes." Kate turned at the passenger at the other side of the aisle. In a way, she was relieved that she wasn't looking at Niko any longer, because otherwise she wouldn't have been able to hold back her tears for much longer. "This gentleman's order was the last for this flight."

In fact, the other stewardesses were already preparing the cabin for landing, a procedure that included taking the passengers' empty glasses to the galley. Only a few minutes later, Kate found herself sitting at the stewardesses' seats next to Rebecca.

"I'm a little bit confused." she said while buckling up. "Airman or diplomat, who's going to be your date tonight?"

"Neither of them." Kate answered.

Rebecca continued to inquiringly look at her, but Kate wasn't in the mood to give any explanation, not even a made-up cover story. She kept silent, endured Rebecca's stare, ignored the slight bucking of the plane during landing, watched in silence as the first passengers raised from their seats even though the plane was still taxiing, and she still didn't speak a word when she joined her fellow stewardesses to say goodbye to the passengers leaving the plane. She put on the fake smile that she had worn at occasions like this so many times before, the famous 'Pan-Am smile', and she smiled and silently nodded at everybody passing her. It was a leaving passenger who addressed her:

"My mind will always be full of you."

Kate didn't say a single word in response, she just looked at Niko as he smiled at her, and then she watched him leaving the plane, setting out for the airport to catch his onward flight. Kate looked after him until he disappeared in the crowd, and at the same moment her eyes lost track of him, she heard a distant call from the far back of the cabin, when a lady sitting in one of the backmost rows called for help by a stewardess:

"Miss, the man sitting next to me sleeps, and he won't wake up! I can't even leave my seat!"

– – – –

_Other stories in this series:_

I:

Colette's story _(coming soon)_

II.

**Kate's story: "We'll Always Have Beirut"**

III.

Laura's story: "More Love Than Two Can Handle" (story URL: _ /s/9208051_)**  
**

IV.

Maggie's story _(coming soon)_

V.

The Grand Finale_ (coming soon)_


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